The Dark Side of Convenience: Rethinking Rideshare Safety

There was a time when the golden rule was clear: never get in a stranger’s car. But fast-forward to today—rideshare apps are a part of daily life. A few taps on your phone, and you can summon a ride from a bar, to the airport, or around a city. Using Uber and other rideshare apps has become second nature. However, behind convenience lies a more complicated story.

Recent court records and investigations reveal troubling statistics about rideshare safety. According to the New York Times, between 2017 and 2022, Uber received a report of sexual assault or misconduct in the U.S. almost every eight minutes. These staggering figures contradict the assumption of safety in an Uber—and these are only the reported incidents.

Uber insists that the vast majority of rides are incident-free. But the volume of daily trips taken means that hundreds of thousands of individuals encounter potentially dangerous situations. For many riders, especially women, this is not just a number—it’s a reality check. These findings are a wake-up call for riders and a call to action for companies such as Uber and Lyft to have more safety precautions in place and treat even one incident as unacceptable.

Patterns emerge in the data. Most victims are women, most offenders are men, and many incidents happen late at night or near bars. It’s a chilling thought: many people turn to Uber as a safer alternative to walking home or driving under the influence—yet the very thing meant to provide peace of mind sometimes brings risk instead.  

Uber has experimented with several safety measures over the years, including women-driver matching, in-car cameras, and predictive safety algorithms, but implementation has been inconsistent. Some tools were quietly shelved, others delayed, and some never fully rolled out. Uber’s current system sends automated alerts when trips deviate from the expected route, but these rarely prevent harm in the moment, as there are no active follow-ups besides an automated voice message.

Rideshares have changed the way we move through the world and allow us to expect convenience. However, it’s time to demand transparency, accountability, and preventative safety measures from rideshare companies. Because getting home safely should never be a gamble.