The complaint targets Uber for lax driver background checks.
According to CNBC, Uber is dealing with a lawsuit brought by more than 500 women who claim that drivers abused them. According to the complaint, Uber drivers “kidnapped, sexually assaulted, sexually abused, raped, falsely imprisoned, stalked, tormented, or otherwise attacked women passengers in several states.” According to the San Francisco law company that filed the lawsuit, it has roughly 550 clients and is now looking into at least another 150 cases.
Uber published its second safety report earlier this month, revealing a 38 percent decrease in sexual assault reports in the five most serious categories from 5,981 in 2017 and 2018 to 3,824 in 2019 and 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a sharp decline in ridership from 2020 to 2021, may be related to it. Uber’s chief legal officer Tony West stated in the article that the company “is continually innovating and investing in the safety of our platform.”
However, the law firm said that safety is not the company’s highest priority. “Uber’s whole business model is predicated on giving people a safe ride home, but rider safety was never their concern – growth was, at the expense of their passengers’ safety,” said Slater Slater Schulman LLP founding partner Adam Slater. “While the company has acknowledged this crisis of sexual assault in recent years, its actual response has been slow and inadequate, with horrific consequences.”
The law firm criticized Uber for lax policies related to driver background checks and enforcement. It noted that Uber has “opted to hire drivers without fingerprinting them or running their information through FBI databases… [and] has a longstanding policy that it will not report any criminal activity – even assaults and rape – to law-enforcement authorities.”
Uber has yet to respond to the lawsuit, but Engadget has reached out for comment. An Uber spokesperson told Fox Business that it can’t comment on pending litigation, but that the company “takes reports of this nature very seriously and has worked closely with advocates to develop a survivor-centric approach to handling such cases when they arise.”
Uber has a history of settlements and complaints related to passenger and driver safety. In 2016, The Guardian reported that Uber had paid out $161.9 million in safety-related lawsuits since 2009. In 2017, it faced a class-action lawsuit accusing it of “giving perpetrators of sexual assault, sexual harassment and physical violence access to thousands of ‘vulnerable victims’ nationwide.” And in 2019, the company was sued for $10 million by a woman who was sexual assaulted by an Uber driver, saying the company put her in harm’s way.
