[baubino]

While I‘m glad that there’s an immediate safe option for women riders, in the longer term this lets Uber off the hook when they should be taking responsibility for their drivers who are functionally employees despite Uber insisting otherwise. It’s worth noting that the old school taxi companies did not have this problem of rampant sexual assault committed by their drivers. Why? Because they performed background checks before hire. I know that at least in Chicago it was very difficult to get licensed as a taxi driver. The problem with Uber is that they make it very very easy for shady individuals to be drivers, then act like they have no control over who’s driving.

[seanmcdirmid]

Long term it will be Waymo, and there won't need to be issues anymore because no human drivers.

> It’s worth noting that the old school taxi companies did not have this problem of rampant sexual assault committed by their drivers.

Wait what? Did you not read a newspaper in the 80s and 90s? If you do a google search today for "taxi driver" and "sexual assault" you will not come up with nothing.

> Why? Because they performed background checks before hire.

99.9% of the taxi drivers in the US have and have always been independent contractors. Uber does background checks on all drivers in the US. A family member applied and was rejected because of a marijuana possession conviction when she was much younger in a state far far away from where she lives now.

https://www.uber.com/us/en/ride/safety/driver-screening/ (this is much more screening that I've seen elsewhere, but maybe you think they are cutting corners?)

[baubino]

I only have experience in one city but I know that getting to drive for Uber is much much easier than getting a taxi driving job in the 90s. Taxi companies performed extensive background checks and while Uber claims to do so now, it’s not clear to me that they have really taken seriously the safety problem and that any random person shouldn’t be allowed as a driver. Their incentive is to get as many people driving as possible.

I never said there were no instances of sexual assault by taxi drivers; just pointing out that there’s a real crisis of rampant assault with Uber for which there are solutions that they’ve essentially refused to entertain because they don’t want to take responsibility for their drivers. I’m saying that these companies need to be held responsible for their role in this problem.

[seanmcdirmid]

Taxi drivers were notorious for sexual assaults back when they were the only game in town, it used to be a meme before we called them memes! I wouldn't be surprised that now that most of their business has moved over to ride shares, so has the crime.

Some recent data:

> London (2016): In a rare direct comparison, there were 154 allegations of rape or sexual assault where the suspect was a taxi or private hire driver (including Uber). Uber drivers were involved in 32 (roughly 20%) of those cases. During this period, Uber accounted for over 30% of journeys in London but only 20% of the reported assaults, suggesting Uber drivers were statistically less likely to be involved in an incident than traditional taxi drivers in that market.

That is London, not the USA of course. Who knows what other factors were at play.

For the USA we have:

> Uber (2017–2022): Reported 12,522 serious sexual assaults. This occurred across approximately 6.3 billion trips, meaning these incidents happened in about 0.0002% of rides.

> Reporting Bias: Modern apps have "emergency" buttons and digital trip trails that make reporting easier and more traceable. Historical taxi assaults were often only recorded if a formal police report was filed, leading to significant underreporting.

> Victim Demographics: In Uber's 2021–2022 data, 42% of reporters were drivers and 56% were riders. Historical taxi data rarely distinguished between driver-on-passenger vs. passenger-on-driver incidents.

> Internal Data: A 2024 government report found that while some taxi companies collect incident data, they treat it as internal information and do not share it with the public

> I’m saying that these companies need to be held responsible for their role in this problem.

People suck, and they always have. The only way for 100% safety is self-driving taxis.