Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Government Accountability Office found in a Feb. 22 report that available data regarding assaults on drivers and passengers of taxis and ride-hailing vehicles is scant, with no federal requirement to collect such data.
- The GAO looked at data on physical and sexual assaults from three ride-hail providers, including Lyft and Uber, as well as five taxi companies and federal databases but determined that “available data cannot fully describe the extent of assaults in these industries.”
- Both Uber and Lyft face lawsuits from plaintiffs alleging sexual and physical assaults.
Dive Insight:
According to the website for Helping Survivors, an organization that supports those impacted by sexual assault and abuse, “Rideshare sexual assault, abuse, and harassment is a growing problem across all rideshare platforms including Uber and Lyft.”
Uber released data in 2019 that revealed nearly 6,000 sexual assaults and 19 fatal physical assaults over the 2017-2018 period. In a follow-up report from Uber covering 2019-2020, sexual assaults declined 38% to 3,824, and physical assaults stayed the same. Lyft’s 2021 safety report for the U.S. showed 4,158 sexual assault incidents from 2017 to 2019.
The GAO also looked at data from six federal agencies but considered this data unreliable, incomplete or applicable only to drivers. The GAO interviewed five state agencies and five local agencies, but none regularly collect assault data from ride-hailing or taxi companies. Of the taxi companies GAO interviewed, most said they had no assaults in 2019 or 2020 and “generally do not publicly report the assault data.”
The GAO report did not make any recommendations but concluded that “the available data are not comparable or are not complete for the purpose of understanding the extent of assaults against ridesourcing and taxi drivers and passengers.”
