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Uber Faces Growing Pressure over Sexual Assault Record

39 points by buellerbueller

by JumpCrisscross

6 subcomments

An element working against Uber is its pathological aversion to customer support.
The only way I’ve found to contact a human when a ride goes awry is to say an accident happened. (In truth, it often involves a concern around safety.) That connects you with humans who can actually, sometimes, address or at least recognize your problem in a way the chatbot never can.
Uber’s refusal to fingerprint drivers betrays that they know they have criminals on their rolls. But I wonder how many cases of rudeness by the driver got upgraded to sexual assault (which, to be clear, is a matter of personal discretion) because Uber went all in on bots.

by hermannj314

1 subcomments

From an article in 2021 regarding Lyft, 38% of sexual assault is passengers assaulting drivers. [1]
Rep. Dingell says, "There is no trade-off that should be acceptable to Uber, considering the devastating impact of sexual assault"
But apparently there is a trade-off for her, seeing as she only wants to focus on one direction of this crime by fingerprints and background checks for drivers and no safeguards protecting drivers. Seems she has chosen to ignore 38% of sexual assaults as well. I wonder why her trade-off is morally superior?
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59008000

by blargthorwars

3 subcomments

How about we arrest, convict with due process, and incarcerate criminals?
Pushing predators around from job to job doesn't solve the problem.

by shrubble

1 subcomments

There's anecdotal evidence that drivers can "rent" a clean identity, meaning that the person who is driving the car is not the person that Uber has on record as being the driver. Uber not looking into this and not being pickier about it, fits with other "I know nothing" corporate behaviors.

by xbar

0 subcomment

Have you met a person and asked them what they do and they say "I am an attorney" and then you ask them, "Oh, what kind of attorney?" And they say, "I represent clients who sue Uber for sexual assault."

by Jcampuzano2

2 subcomments

This is exactly why I think Waymo will win.
My wife and I went to a couple cities where Waymo operated and when we tried it were pleasantly surprised. Talked to a few people and did some research and it's clear women feel much safer and will pay the premium to have their type of experience vs basically a random gamble as to the type of person who will pick you up in an Uber.
Not to mention lately it seems like Ubers standards for the cars picking you up have gone way down the drain. That or maybe people are just lying or gaming the system about the state of their vehicles.
And on top of that there are plenty of drivers who probably shouldn't even have a license. As a man there have been plenty of rides where I've felt unsafe simply due to erratic driving.

by josefritzishere

0 subcomment

I closed my Uber account last month over issues like this. Uber has a bad corporate culture that seems incurable. They've had a series of immoral and even criminal scandals. I can't give them my money anymore. I vote with my wallet.

by buellerbueller

0 subcomment

by jsksdkldld

0 subcomment

by pepperball

1 subcomments

As a man, I never understood how bad this was. I have only felt unsafe in an Uber a few times, mostly because the driver should have had their license revoked due to their advanced age.
Without going into too much detail, I’ve learned just how bad it is. On the “less” vile end of things, my current parter had some desperate slime try to offer her money for sex. I made sure he reported him, but Silicon Valley loves to enable sex criminals, I imagine he’s still out there.

by oldjim798

0 subcomment