One sexual assault is too many. So Uber’s study released Thursday, showing that 3,045 sexual assaults were reported during its rides in the United States last year, was disconcerting.
The market didn’t react kindly, driving down the price of Uber stock by nearly 3 percent on Friday. And critics of the San Francisco-based ride-hailing app are likely to jump on Uber’s new data. But before they do, they need to ask, compared to what?
Context is important. The reported incidents involved about 0.00023 percent of Uber’s 1.3 billion rides in this country last year.
What’s disconcerting is that there seems to be no clear basis for comparison. There is no database for the primary alternative transportation mode, taxicabs. Lyft, Uber’s main competitor, says its working on a similar study but has not released any data. As for public transportation, BART, for example, is hardly a bastion of safety.
Gig-economy companies — whether its Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Airbnb, Handy or Instacart — have reshaped the way we do daily business. And it seems, in one form or another, they’re here to stay.
The question is how they will respond to challenges. Many of them, Uber and Airbnb most notably, started out by breaking the rules and asking questions later. And by ignoring the potential pitfalls of their models, whether it’s the safety of ride-hailing passengers and drivers or the dangers of party-house rentals.
But that’s catching up to them. Airbnb, after five were killed at one of their rentals in Orinda on Halloween, announced last week that they would issue new guest behavior rules, ban “open invite” parties and set up a new complaint line for city officials. It’s a start.
Similarly, Uber seems to have finally learned that running roughshod over the rules will alienate customers and regulators. The company’s new 2017-18 U.S. Safety Report seems to be an attempt to change its ways — to confront legitimate problems head-on and transparently.
For that, the company is to be commended. But it also must acknowledge that these safety issues should have been anticipated. Entrepreneurs aren’t doing themselves — or their industry — any favors when they fail to anticipate problems and only act on consumer issues after the fact.
The question for Uber now is what it does with its new data. Touting the company’s transparency and contextualizing the numbers isn’t enough. As we said, one sexual assault is one too many.
The new Uber approach seems to appreciate that. Chief Legal Officer Tony West seems to be talking the talk. He says his company is striving to “become the safest ridesharing app in the world.”
But will Uber walk the walk? Will it unleash the innovation of the technology minds that brought us the gig economy to make it safer?
So far, what we’re seeing is encouraging. Tighter background checks on drivers. More app safety features for riders and drivers. Sharing of names of banned drivers so they don’t pop up working for competitors.
It’s a positive start. More data will show whether it’s working.
