[prawn]

The police themselves would put an officer on paid leave during the investigation, right?

Lyft could suspend the driver, paying them temporarily into escrow, then release that if the allegation is false. Not perfect, but that would mean they had acted quickly and the driver didn't go without income if they were innocent. If it started a rash of false claims so drivers could be paid without working, you can investigate the claimant for fraud (?) and flag the driver's account for review.

Or look into what taxi companies do in these situations.

[buildzr]

You can't give someone paid leave if they don't work regular hours. I know everyone likes to mock them for calling them "contractors", but in some ways it makes sense - they're employees doing work on a per-contract basis. There's no magic number you can use to accommodate that, especially if something like this could cause them to lose other jobs and need the income.

Looks like some taxi companies suspend without pay over a lot less though, so do we just call that fair enough? I dunno. Doesn't seem ideal really.

[prawn]

You can pay them some sort of living wage, if the alternative is uproar over innocent drivers being suspended by fake allegations. That's all I'm saying.