Here’s Why Uber Should Report Data on Violence Involving Its Drivers

Uber, Lyft, Didi and the rest of global ride-hailing industry look more and more like public transportation, both in the number of customers that they serve and the variety of transportation options that they offer. Yet we know very little about how safe these services are. How often do drivers get into accidents? How often do those accidents result in serious injuries? How frequently do drivers attack passengers and vice versa?

This topic is on my mind because I wrote Thursday about 14 women who say they were assaulted, raped or harassed by their Uber drivers. Their stories are terrifying. One of the women says she was “jolted awake” when her Uber driver began sexually assaulting her. Another woman says her driver took her, not to her sister’s apartment, but to her driver’s, where he forced her inside and raped her. These nightmare allegations are hopefully tragic anomalies. But how rare are they?