Ride share programs sued over sexual assaults
Today, the NY Times reported that over 3000 sexual assaults were reported in US rides last year. Lyft has reportedly been sued by 55 women to date, for sexual assaults committed through their service. Both services screen their drivers for criminal backgrounds and persons required to register as sex offenders are not allowed to drive for either company.
Both ride share programs point out that their companies provide millions of rides per day, and in 99.9% of cases nothing remarkable happens. Still, news reports will focus on and inevitably legislative policy will target the extremely rare occurrences that barely ever happen.
Yesterday, Uber published it’s US Safety Report (you can read the executive summary here). Among other information, it provided statistics for sexual assaults and traffic crashes.
You can chose to spin the statistics the way the New York Times and the articles from earlier this week about dating apps did, and say that as a result of motor vehicle accidents during Uber rides there were 107 total fatalities in 2017 and 97 in 2018. That might be factually correct, but when taken in the context of another fact; “this year, nearly 4 million Uber trips happened every day in the US—more than 45 rides every second”, those stats seem pretty low.
To quantify the “problem”, rides where serious incidents occurred (such as sexual assaults or accidents in which injuries were sustained), accounted for 3/10,000ths of 1% of all rides. Because of this 0.0003% chance, you will now have people going to their legislators and asking them to create unnecessary new laws.The media could have just as easily reported that 99.9997% of all rides went perfectly. Couldn’t the NY Times have reported just how safe Uber and Lyft are instead of creating hysteria?
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So you mean these women were assaulted by people NOT on the sex offender registry???? Who would had thought that.
Ride share disclaimer : Caution your driver may attempt to violate you in a sexual manner however there is no need to check your state or national sex offender registry because he/she isn’t on it
Thank you for using
Lyft/Uber
In answer to your question, No the media has shown itself incapable of Not doing its level best to spread unwarranted fear and or hate.
The two rules of media are 1) Sex sells and 2) If it bleeds it leads.
It has become apparent to me that these two rules have only been superceded by what has become of late a policy of creating and/or spreading of hysterical lies if it furthers a political agenda.
Thus ends my daily rant.
Michael Pierce
To add to your comment , a man appeared on the then political scene 2000 years ago to debunk fake news , even performing miracles proving he had supper intelligent backing . But we see how the world in general accepted him and his logical views. They killed him. No different today.
Some good points have been raised in these comments and I’d like to add something – Have these types of crimes never happened in old fashioned taxi cabs? Why are the news media focusing solely on Uber (and maybe Lyft)? What about taxis?
How about buses and subway trains?
Let’s also not forget that Uber and Lyft drivers do not carry cash or take cash payments. Taxis do. And taxi drivers get assaulted and robbed all the time. Where is the legislation for that, eh? Exactly. Sex is the selling point in this country’s LE and media. Period.
Based on experience these comments sound reasonable. Sad but true.