July 14, 2022 – Uber is being sued by more than 500 women who claim they were assaulted by drivers while using the ride-hailing platform across the United States, according to reports.
The class action suit, filed on Wednesday in San Francisco County Superior Court by attorneys at law firm Slater Slater Schulman, reads that “women passengers in multiple states were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, sexually battered, raped, falsely imprisoned, stalked, harassed, or otherwise attacked by Uber drivers with whom they had been paired through the Uber application”.
Adam Slater, founding partner of Slater Slater Schulman, said that Uber’s whole business model is predicated on giving people a safe ride home, but rider safety was never their concern and that the company’s growth was at the expense of their passengers’ safety.
According to the law firm, it has about 550 clients with claims against Uber, and at least 150 more are being actively investigated.
“As early as 2014, Uber became aware that its drivers were sexually assaulting and raping female passengers; nevertheless, in the eight years since, sexual predators driving for Uber have continued to attack passengers, including the plaintiffs whose claims were alleged in today’s action,” said the law firm.
Related: Ride-Hailing Services Are Repeatedly Failing To Ensure Safety For Women
The lawsuit, which also claims that Uber does not run proper background checks on its drivers, comes nearly two weeks after Uber released its second safety report. The mobility giant received 3,824 reports of the five most severe categories of sexual assault in 2019 and 2020. The company said that reported sexual assaults saw 38 percent drop compared to its first report, which found 5,981 assault reports covering 2017 and 2018.
“Sexual assault is a horrific crime and we take every single report seriously,” an Uber spokesperson said. “There is nothing more important than safety, which is why Uber has built new safety features, established survivor-centric policies, and been more transparent about serious incidents. While we can’t comment on pending litigation, we will continue to keep safety at the heart of our work.”
According to Slater, however, Uber has “acknowledged this crisis of sexual assault in recent years, its actual response has been slow and inadequate, with horrific consequences”.
“There is so much more that Uber can be doing to protect riders: adding cameras to deter assaults, performing more robust background checks on drivers, creating a warning system when drivers don’t stay on a path to a destination,” said Slater. “But the company refuses to, and that’s why my firm has 550 clients with claims against Uber and we’re investigating at least 150 more. Acknowledging the problem through safety reports is not enough. It is well past time for Uber to take concrete actions to protect its customers.”
