Uber, which has a major sexual assault problem that becomes worse late at night and on weekends — when women typically use the service in an effort to be safe — has reportedly averaged a sexual assault or sexual misconduct report in the United States every eight minutes over the course of five years.
Court documents obtained by the New York Times reveal that Uber received a staggering 400,181 reports of sexual assault and sexual misconduct between 2017 and 2022 — a problem far more prevalent than what the popular ridesharing company has suggested.
Uber, which reportedly has internal teams of data scientists and safety experts studying the problem for years, has claimed to be one of the safest travel options while it launches aggressive campaigns insisting serious attacks against its customers are a rare occurrence.
While Uber has effective tools to make rides safer — such as matching algorithms, mandatory video recording, and a feature allowing women to choose female drivers — the company nonetheless delayed or failed to require its drivers to adopt some of the programs.
Moreover, Uber did not inform passengers of the factors that the company has been able to connect to potential attacks, according to accounts from more than a dozen current and former employees detailed in internal and court documents.
The company, which sees millions of customers obtain rides with its app every day, appears to have prioritized growing its user base rather than people’s safety.
Notably, Uber classifies its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, making running the company less costly, given that it is not required to pay minimum wage, overtime, employee benefits, or provide time for breaks. Unfortunately, the contractor classification also means drivers are not subject to the same rules as traditional employees.
Now, hundreds of records have been sealed involving a large-scale sexual assault litigation against Uber, the Times reported.
Hannah Nilles, Uber’s head of safety for the Americas, told the New York Times that around 75 percent of the 400,181 reports were “less serious,” citing people having made remarks about someone’s appearance, flirting, or using explicit language. Nilles also claimed there could exist incorrect or fraudulent reports from users trying to get a refund, noting Uber has yet to audit all of the incidents.
But some Uber employees surmise that incidents of sexual assault and sexual misconduct are likely underreported due to customers concerned a driver has learned where they live, or feeling intimidated or shamed.
The ridesharing company, meanwhile has reportedly discovered that specific patterns transpire before sexual assaults: attacks typically occur late at night, on weekends, and involving pickups near a bar. Moreover, women are usually the victims — whether they are passengers or drivers — and men, in most cases, are the offenders, also whether they are drivers or passengers, according to Uber’s own internal documents.
The company also considered including cameras in vehicles, suspecting that the threat of being caught on video — even if the camera is not on — could be enough to effectively curtail bad behavior.
The camera idea was in response to an algorithmic tool Uber had developed meant to predict which matches of drivers and passengers would likely result in sexual misconduct not having a high enough success rate as the company hoped it would.
Uber employees agreed that the camera plan was practical, cost effective, and would likely reduce misconduct, an internal 2017 presentation showed. But the company ultimately decided not to mandate the cameras, mainly because the concept conflicted with its business model.
“No single safety feature or policy is going to prevent unpredictable incidents from happening on Uber, or in our world,” Nilles told the New York Times, adding that Uber has rolled out a range of safety features.
As for the litigation Uber is facing, the first case is expected to go to trial next month, and involves a woman in San Jose, California, who ordered a ride to an airport, only to report to the police days later that she had been sexually assaulted.
In December 2016, the woman — an 18-year-old college student at the time — allegedly hailed an Uber not long after 8:00 p.m. on a Friday, requesting the driver take her to the airport so she could catch her flight.
The woman said she checked the license plate after the car arrived at her pickup location, as advised by the company, at which point the driver informed her his trunk was broken, so she placed her bags in the back seat and sat in the front.
Shortly after the ride began, the driver allegedly turned down a dark street, ended the trip on the app, and climbed on top of the woman, kissing her and groping her breasts, before trying to take off her pants.
Frightened, and having no idea where she was due to the street being poorly lit, the woman tried to push the driver off, but he restrained her by wrapping her hair around the seat’s headrest, she said.
The alleged incident ended when the woman’s phone — which had fallen between the seat and the center divide — began buzzing, at which point she told the Uber driver that her parents were tracking her location.
After that, the driver took her to the airport, but taunted her on the way by suggesting he now knew where she lived and would later “come find” her, she said in a deposition.
Upon arriving at the airport, the driver allegedly forcibly kissed the woman before letting her exit his vehicle, she said.
“He was like, ‘Bye, I’m going to come find you,’” the woman said.
Uber claims the driver had passed a background check and the company never received a serious complaint about him before the incident.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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