https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/business/uber-sexual-assault.html
Uber’s Festering Sexual Assault Problem
The company has tested tools that make rides safer, court records show. Measures to stem the violence have been set aside in favor of protecting the company’s business.
By Emily Steel, The New York Times, Aug. 6, 2025
Uber received a report of sexual assault or sexual misconduct in the United States almost every eight minutes on average between 2017 and 2022, sealed court records show, a level far more pervasive than what the company has disclosed…
Inside Uber, teams of data scientists and safety experts spent years studying the problem. The company tested tools that proved effective at making trips safer, including sophisticated matching algorithms, mandatory video recording and pairing female passengers with female drivers.
Still, Uber delayed or did not require its drivers to adopt some of the most promising programs, nor did it warn passengers about factors it linked to attacks, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, internal documents and court records. Hundreds of the records have been under seal as part of large-scale sexual assault litigation against Uber.
Uber’s decisions about safety came as it prioritized growing its user base, avoiding costly lawsuits and protecting its business model, which classifies drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, the records show.
The distinction is important to Uber. Contractors are much cheaper than employees because the company does not need to pay benefits or overtime, and it also means drivers are minimally supervised and not subject to the same labor rules as traditional employees…
From 2017 to 2022, a total of 400,181 Uber trips resulted in reports of sexual assault and sexual misconduct in the United States, court documents show. …[end quote]
This is a long, detailed article that blows the lid off of Uber’s concealment of sexual assault by both drivers and passengers. The worst risk is when a driver with a previous report of sexual harassment against him picks up a drunk woman at a bar. The lowest risk is when driver and passenger are both women, which the Uber computer can match up.
In-car cameras would help reduce the risk of sexual assault but Uber is careful to maintain that their drivers are independent contractors so they can’t mandate cameras.
There hasn’t been a class action suit (yet) and Uber fights each lawsuit separately, claiming that they aren’t responsible for criminal drivers who are independent contractors. After this article, any tort lawyer worth his salt would smell the opportunity for a class-action suit against Uber.
My personal take-away from this article is that women passengers should request woman drivers when possible. And that I would prefer a robotic car to a male driver.
Wendy