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In what many are lauding as a much needed step to be more transparent, Uber released their US Safety Report in which they detail the number of sexual assaults reported over the 2017-2018 time frame. Common sense tells us the numbers are higher, as a great many sexual assaults go unreported.
The report highlights how Uber fielded 235 reports over the past year (2017-18) which averages out to be 4 per week.
NBC analysis of the report provides us this snapshot of the 5,981 reports of sexual abuse between 2017 and 2018:
- 235 reports of rape in 2018, up from 229 in 2017.
- 280 reports of attempted rape in 2018, down from 307 in 2017.
- 1,560 reports of groping in 2018, up from 1,440 in 2017.
- 376 reports of unwanted kissing to the breast, buttocks or mouth in 2018, down from 390 in 2017.
- 594 reports of unwanted kissing to a different body part in 2018, up from 570 in 2017.
Uber goes to great lengths to highlight the statistical probability of something untoward happening when using one of their driver’s vehicles - i.e. “99.9% of trips ended without any safety-related issue at all, no matter how minor.” Which equates to about 0.00003% of all Uber trips have a critical safety incident. A statistic of little value when you are the victim and you are dealing with 100% of the incident occurring.
They continue their obfuscation by rolling out statistics on the number of people who lose their lives in auto accidents each year - 36,000 last year.
In addition, a wide swath of organizations have lauded Uber for their transparency with this report, and Securely Travel adds our voice - we do laud Uber’s effort at transparency. We also laud them for taking concrete steps to protect both riders and drivers from assaults.
“As an advocate who has been working in the movement to end sexual violence for the past 20 years, I welcome this unprecedented report. Efforts like this embolden our work for a safer future. By releasing this data publicly, Uber is confronting these challenging issues head-on rather than shying away from or minimizing the numbers. In fact, they made the intentional decision to be over inclusive, capturing data by accepting every report at face value.”
Karen Baker, CEO, National Sexual Violence Resource Center
Please take a moment and read the entire report, and draw your own conclusions. We look forward to Lyft producing a similar report, which it has said it would (two years ago).
Uber safety report (pdf)
Uber is putting effort into reducing the likelihood of something untoward, including sexual assault occurring to their passengers or drivers. These include:
- In-App Emergency button
- Ride-Check.
- Share My Trip/Follow My Ride
- Speeding Alerts
- Phone Number and address anonymization
- Realtime ID check
- Driving-Hours tools
