Numerous people who have taken Uber and Lyft rides have reported suffering sexual battery and rape at the hands of their drivers. Others have involved assault, false imprisonment, or attempted kidnapping. People who use ride-sharing are at the mercy of their drivers. During their ride, passengers can do very little to protect themselves. This is especially true of female passengers who use ride-sharing to get home after a night of partying. Intoxication may make them less able to defend themselves. Worse, they are often alone. They can easily be taken advantage of by their ride-sharing driver. Impaired passengers also often fall asleep in the car. This gives Uber or Lyft drivers an opportunity to take advantage of them and commit a sexual assault.

Nevertheless, Uber and Lyft market themselves as a safe alternative to drunk driving. They are promoting ride-sharing to this vulnerable group of people. It puts drivers in a position of power and gives them an opportunity to commit a sexual assault. The problem is made worse by the weak hiring policies that ride-sharing companies use.

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Uber received nearly 6,000 reports of serious sexual assault in 2017 and 2018 combined, according to a Safety Report shared by the rideshare company in December 2019.  That number includes both riders and drivers as those who reported assault.

Uber isn’t the only rideshare company that has faced allegations of sexual assault. In fact, in October 2021, Lyft released its own safety report, nearly two full years after the release of Uber’s report. The safety report covered statistics from 2017 through 2019, showing more than 4,000 reports of sexual assault, including 360 reports specifically of rape. Nonconsensual touching of a sexual body part accounted for more than 2,000 of the cited sexual assault reports.