Uber: 3,045 Sexual Assaults Reported in U.S. Rides Last Year | Hacker News Reader

Uber: 3,045 Sexual Assaults Reported in U.S. Rides Last Year

nytimes.com

65 pointsvo2maxer63 comments

The majority of sexual assaults are not reported. The true number is likely 10,000+ sexual assaults based on ratios that are used for reporting rates.

* https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-compassion-chron...

They can't put the percentage or denominator in the headline? Seems borderline click-baity to me. Even a percentage probably wouldn't cut it -- I can't tell from either whether it's lower or higher than I should expect. Obviously I hope for 0 sexual assaults, but it'd be nice if the headline communicated meaningful information

Trying to downplay sexual assaults as a small percentage is a way of trying to dismiss that it happens, and that it happens a lot.

But if the percentage is actually small then it doesn't happen a lot. Looking at the literal number of occurrences instead of the percentage just gives you a biased impression, because any number of assaults > 0 can seem like a lot.

For comparison, it looks like the probability of a random passenger on a 737 MAX dying in an MCAS related accident was about 10 times the probability that a random passenger would report a sexual assault on their Uber ride.

They grounded the 737 MAXes because that probability of death was too high.

If the probability of assault in an Uber is within an order of magnitude, that suggests to me that it is reasonable to expect some additional scrutiny / regulation.

Maybe there should be government cameras in all the vehicles, and other sensors that can detect what is going on and provide it all directly to the NSA.

That seems a bit obscene! I'm sure there are much smaller / fairer measures that shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

Nobody is trying to diminish it. Good statistics for crime help provide context, comparisons, measure progress, etc. All of which helps you do better in addressing it.

3400 assaults is a ridiculously high number regardless of the denominator, IMHO.

If anything, the headline isn't clickbaity enough.

What we should be asking for is analysis of these 3000-3400 cases to see what were the patterns? Maybe there are 3 patterns we can identify as being inherently risky and then educate customers to avoid those.

I agree the number is surprisingly high. It appears 10 people are getting assaulted every day. That's a scary thought. However, at the same time, I am happy that this data exists and is published so that we can now ask for year over year comparisons moving forward.

Raw numbers provide comparisons and measure progress too. Not sure what you mean by context.

I’m of the same mind as your OP: the goal is zero violence, in raw numbers. Shooting for a low seeming percentage seems to be most often just a way to hide the fact that specific small groups are consistently receiving the lions share of violence, which is unacceptable to me.

Context would mean many things. A percentage, for example, would let you see if there are areas that exceed the average. Or driver demographic slices (age group, for example). Or time of day/week. Or comparisons to other related industries. If it's higher than regular taxi service, that might help you see if they are doing something you aren't.

It's hard to improve things you don't measure with actionable data.

I just don’t understand how a percentage counts as actionable data but a count does not?

Actionable is having a percentage AND the percentage of the most likely alternative, such as a taxi. Then, you can decide which is safer to take home tonight.

Because percentages can be compared across, locations, for example. Raw numbers cannot. 10 assualts in city A vs 20 assaults in city B tells you squat, unless you know how many rides in each.

Similar for other comparisons. Like assaults by driver demographic, like age group. Or comparisons to traditional taxi service...if they have lower incident rates, maybe they have a practice you should adopt.

since half of those sexual assaults are accusing passengers it really does not give you any insight into the safety of the service as a passenger

the passengers being accused of sexually assaulting a driver or another passenger

for any uber user looking for validation of danger, don't take shared rides, don't ride with friends, don't be a driver and your chances of avoiding sexual assault have just doubled.

Trying to equate adding context with 'downplaying' a topic is what's slowly turning people off to most activism. You're not doing anyone favors by advocating for ignorance.

>Trying to downplay sexual assaults as a small percentage is a way of trying to dismiss that it happens

Why?

For more detailed information, the article links to the full report which includes methodology: https://www.uber-assets.com/image/upload/v1575580686/Documen...

From the report:

    The vast majority (99.9%) of Uber trips end without any safety-related issue at all. 
    For example, for the trips in 2017 and 2018:
        •1.4% of trips had a support request of any kind, most frequently for issues such as lost items, refunds, or route feedback.
        •0.1% of trips had a support request for a safety-related concern, and the majority of those concerns were about less-severe safety issues such as complaints of harsh braking or a verbal argument.
        •0.0003% of trips had a report of a critical safety incident,8 which are the incidents referenced in this report

Article is pay walled, is that number assaults on passengers, drivers or both? Does article it break it down? Seems lower than baseline population numbers either way.

Taxis if you commit assault you lose your 250k medallion hence you don’t commit sexual assault. Uber driver, you switch careers or countries (happened to friend of friend, she got assaulted he fled).

Uber driver, you install Lyft.

But taxis are horrible in so many other ways. Either they are allowed to act in the way they do ("oops. My card reader isn't working") or the rules aren't enforced. The average Uber ride is miles better than a taxi ride and just as a matter of scale, the extremes will be worse.

In Manhattan the taxis seem pretty reasonable to me but that may be an outlier for a variety of reasons.

If the card reader isn't working, that's their problem. Cab company policies are clear regarding payment methods. If the driver is looking for a cash fare, they can let the customer know before the ride starts. If they don't, they're SOL.

I think the comment is that even if you’re willing to confront the driver, you’re forced into an awkward social situation (the confrontation, yelling and anger, having them angrily “get the card reader worker”).

Many people (myself included) would pay to avoid such nonsense, so the “cost” of a taxi is often much higher than the meter fare.

There’s other factors: dangerous driving, refusal to take you to your destination and the following confrontation (also illegal, but happens often), etc.

All this also depends on where you are. Some cities have great taxis. I’m basing my opinion here on Toronto pre-Uber taxis.

They should provide the breakdown of accused specifically for Non-Consensual Sexual Penetration. They lump all sexual assault together and then break down by accused, which seems like they’re trying to hide that it’s the drivers who are doing the actual raping, and it’s the backseat passengers who are trying to cop a feel during a drunken makeout session.

Uber and Lyft seem to be engaged in a race to the bottom that's degrading rider experience as they struggle to bring costs and revenue into line.

It feels as if there's still a market opportunity for safe, clean, timely rides. Zoom did something similar for web conferencing, which at the time was regarded as a solved problem.

According to this ride, Ubers are perfectly safe for 99.99% of their 1+ billion rides. I feel like 58 auto fatalities and 9 murders out of 1.3 billion trips is even way lower than the rate in the public.

its not a degrading rider experience when half of those reported sexual assaults are accusing riders

I see this comment everytime a post about ride hailing services pops up... but I can't figure out how it's relevant to this discussion this time.

The only word you mentioned that was relevant was safe... So are you suggesting that because they're fighting over costs with lyft, they pay drivers less which reduces reputable drivers and "poorer and more likely to rape" drivers join the app?

Yes, or more accurately less desirable drivers. My recent rides on Lyft and Uber have not been good. Either the cars were clapped out or the drivers were telling me how they could not make a living and were looking for other work.

I find this interesting. 58 car related deaths from 1.3 billion rides. In the US you have about 100 car deaths per day. Let’s assume 100m cars on the road each day, for 100 deaths for 200 million trips. Uber could be an order of magnitude safer.

Wouldn't most Uber trips be on roads with lower speed limits since they're almost entirely intra-urban? In that case it'd make sense that they're safer than national average.

I suggest that women be allowed to specify that they want a female Uber driver. Maybe some women would accept a male driver during the day time and in safe areas but require a female driver at night and in less safe areas.

What's next, asking for a driver of a specific ethnicity? Seems just as reasonable as your request.

Far more women are sexually assaulted by men than by women, and I don't see why the law cannot recognize that. That's why we have separate bathrooms and locker rooms for the sexes and why college roommates in dorms are usually of the same sex.

Neither of those things are mandated by laws, afaik.

No, but single-sex bathrooms, locker rooms, and dorm rooms are not forbidden by law, and I think the law should not forbid people, especially women, from requesting a female driver.

Recognizing that also welcomes comparisons along other boundaries. Some racial minorities are over-represented in violent crime statistics. Without delving into biases potentially present in both your statistic and those, what would be the fundamental difference between allowing riders to filter by gender and allowing them to filter by race? Your argument seems like a justification for both.

I also don't know that sexual assault is the reason for segregated bathrooms and locker rooms. I was always under the impression that it was just a puritanical artifact from an older time. Unified bathrooms are becoming more popular; I am curious if that has had any impact on sexual assault rates.

It doesn’t really require comparisons across any other boundaries, but it might be at odds with certain feminist philosophies. However, making it optional seems like an easy way to please everyone.

The fundamental difference between filtering by race and filtering by gender is that one is by race and one is by gender. They’re not the same thing, and we don’t need to pretend that they are.

Separate bathrooms is most certainly not related to the Puritans, as we can observe equal or more bathroom separation across almost all religions and in all countries.

I don’t even think unified bathrooms are really becoming more popular outside the relatively small bubble that has been influenced by trans-activism. Even then, most of them are for a single occupant, which doesn’t really count, but satisfies everyone.

> They’re not the same thing, and we don’t need to pretend that they are.

They're the same in that you don't get a choice in either case before your birth.

You would be treating people differently based on something they have no influence over, instead of actually recognizing them as a individual who can make their own choices.

If you decide that discriminating based on race or sex (or anything else you're born with) is okay, you're starting down a slippery slope with a running start and no more obvious stops in sight. Best not to start with this at all.

we also use to have segregation by race, justified similarly to the way you are justifying sex segregation.

> That's why we have separate bathrooms and locker room

I've never heard anyone claim this before, do you have any source or evidence to support this? Wouldn't that imply "family washrooms" or co-ed are hot-spots for rape? That seems like hyperbole.

The simplest reason would be for privacy between the sexes and keeping with a tradition of segregating washrooms that dates back to the Victorian Era. Before which, public bathrooms were male only, making things very difficult for women to be about in public. Thus the creation of female public washrooms was to allow them the same rights as men, not to prevent men from assaulting them in co-ed facilities.

Source: https://www.livescience.com/54692-why-bathrooms-are-gender-s...

A few problems with that:

* Couldn't a man identify as female, and then be in the perfect situation to find women in "less safe areas" who feel vulnerable?

* This would also allow men to request female drivers, are you sure that's a good thing?

* Only 14% of Uber drivers are female, so you might be waiting awhile for that ride...

> This would also allow men to request female drivers, are you sure that's a good thing?

The OP explicitly mentioned women-asking-for-female drivers, and not implying the inverse. That type of program is not uncommon for safety.

I don't remember Uber ever asking for my gender, just a phone number. How would they enforce that?

Given increased political scrutiny, I wouldn't be surprised if Uber/Lyft was compelled to do more rider-side verification in the future.

What political scrutiny of Uber riders are you referring to?

Not political scrutiny of the riders, but increased scrutiny of the companies themselves and their practices.

Then they’d have to start asking or find out from your docs

Unfortunately, I'm sure the ratio of male:female drivers is skewed for similar reasons -- I can't imagine many women would be comfortable picking up a group of drunk men from the bar at 2am on a Saturday.

I think female Uber drivers should be allowed to specify a preference for female passengers also. Uber drivers and taxi drivers do fear being assaulted by passengers.

Can't work anymore because these days nobody is allowed to say who is and isn't a woman. I could request an Uber and a guy could show up but we could both say that we identify as women. Who's going to touch that one with a 10 foot pole?

What about allow a passenger to request a driver who has undergone a background check, US citizenship check, etc.

Uber already has this in the gulf states

In the United States, you can't discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, or disability, so this would be illegal.

Really? So, for instance, a woman in the US cannot specify that she wants a female gynecologist?

I hope we can regulate this somehow!

Let's suppose there were 1000 rapes in NYC cabs in a year because NYPD doesn't keep good stats for various political, economic, social and tourism concerns. And ~2 billion rides/year.

Uber posted their stats: 3100 rapes/year. Let's call it 5500/year or 15/day.

NYC cabs: ~2,000,000 rides/rape

Uber: ~140,000 rides/rape

On the face of it, on average, NYC cabs seem over an order-of-magnitude safer than Uber.

Was that just from the former CEO?

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