Uber report adds fuel to ride-hailing reform fire

No one ever said getting into a car with a stranger was risk-free, but Uber's disclosure this month of thousands of sexual assaults of its riders and drivers over a two-year period is raising fresh fears — along with renewed calls for reform in the ride-hailing industry.

Industry stakeholders have been working to improve the safety of ride-hailing services: Lawmakers have been drafting legislation for months; dozens of assault victims have filed lawsuits; municipalities even have stepped in to try to address widespread concerns.

The Uber report, released Dec. 5, examined data from 2.3 billion trips in the U.S. in 2017 and 2018. It revealed 5,981 sexual assaults, 19 killings and 107 traffic fatalities in those two years. The report marked the first time Uber voluntarily released a comprehensive review of safety issues involving its service.

"I suspect many people will be surprised at how rare these incidents are; others will understandably think they're still too common," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on Twitter upon release of the report. "Some people will appreciate how much we've done on safety; others will say we have more work to do. They will all be right."

Carla Bailo, CEO of the Center for Automotive Research, in Ann Arbor, Mich., told Automotive News that Uber should have disclosed the assaults earlier.

"You didn't see the numbers until they were at this magnitude," Bailo said. "One should have sparked a report."

Lyft Inc., Uber's largest competitor, has not publicly released comprehensive safety data, but it is facing lawsuits filed on behalf of several riders who say the service did nothing to prevent drivers from sexually assaulting them. Uber also has been sued over alleged assaults.

"Now that this has been illuminated, there clearly has to be some way to manage it," Bailo said. "This report will not go unnoticed or untalked about — and it shouldn't."

The number of assaults was less than 1 percent of total Uber rides, but Bryant Greening, attorney at LegalRideshare, a Chicago personal injury law firm that handles Uber and Lyft claims, accuses Uber of downplaying the problem and evading some safety responsibility. He says ride-hailing companies have the resources and technology to make safety innovations.

"Uber says that it released this report voluntarily and certainly was under no obligation to do so, but the report was released under immense pressure. Lawmakers, local authorities, customers, drivers were all demanding transparency," Greening said. "I don't believe that this was some benevolent act or situation where Uber is now turning into a company with a conscience that we haven't seen in the past. This report was generated because of a demand for transparency, and I don't think that it's a coincidence that it happened soon after the company went public."

Lawmakers have been advocating for better regulation. In October, for example, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., relayed his concern to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.

"The process Uber and Lyft use to vet drivers is woefully inadequate," he said at the hearing, which Uber and Lyft declined to attend.

Some have suggested requiring both front and back license plates on ride-hailing vehicles, stronger driver background checks and other significant safety steps.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker introduced legislation to gain access to more ride data from these companies and to require them to be subject to more comprehensive safety measures.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., along with the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence, called for transparency when it comes to removing unsafe ride-hailing drivers. They also called for driver background checks that include fingerprinting, and sharing information about banned drivers.

Bailo said she would advocate for ride-hailing services to require cameras in all vehicles to improve safety, depending on who facilitates the recordings.

Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing companies say they have instituted internal reforms, primarily focused on sexual assault prevention.

Uber says its efforts include deactivation sharing, through which Uber would publicly share the names of drivers who have been banned from its platform. They also include new technology features, such as an in-app emergency button, RideCheck (to check whether a trip goes unusually off course), Verify Your Rides (to ensure passengers get into the right vehicle by requiring a driver to input a rider's unique four-digit PIN) and Follow My Ride (to share a trip status with others from the app).

Other initiatives are a survivor hotline, sexual misconduct prevention education for drivers and a partnership with RALIANCE — a sexual violence awareness and prevention organization — to create a holistic resource center.

Uber said more than 1 million prospective drivers did not pass its screening process in 2017 and 2018, the majority of whom were disqualified during the motor vehicle record check. The company also has removed more than 40,000 drivers from the app since launching continuous driver screening technology over the past two years.

Lyft instituted similar safety features, launching more than a dozen this year, such as Smart Trip Check-in, emergency assistance and community safety education, increased criminal monitoring, license and photo verification, route location sharing, two-way ratings and anti-fraud measures.

In statements to Automotive News, Uber and Lyft spokeswomen said the companies' background checks are more comprehensive than fingerprinting and that the organizations have substantially boosted their safety efforts.

Still, some say those efforts are not enough.

"If you look at the taxi side, why do taxis not have close to the number of incidents that they have?" said Gary Buffo, president of the National Limousine Association, speaking anecdotally. "It's because we have rules and regulations that we're mandated to follow."

Comprehensive national data on taxi assaults is not available, but the association has put safety in focus, starting the Ride Responsibly campaign in 2015 to advocate for rider and driver safety within passenger transportation services.

Buffo said companies such as Uber and Lyft need to start taking on a "brick-and-mortar mentality" to manage rider and driver safety, rather than developing more in-app safety measures.

"There's no systematic way of stopping that in a wireless app environment. There's just no way of stopping it," Buffo said.

Said Greening, of LegalRideshare: "We anticipated that ride-share would disrupt the way people get from point A to point B, but we did not expect so little accountability, so little recourse."

Todd Hansen, assistant research scientist at Texas A&M University's Transportation Institute, said that while the public and lawmakers have a role, ride-hailing companies should take responsibility for safety.

"Whether it's a public or private transportation provider, it is a responsibility of that provider to show that they can safely deliver the service or the trip they are trying to provide to the customer," Hansen said.