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Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

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Re: Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

#211

Post by RajT88 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #112
john_strinlai wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they didnt say false accusations dont happen, or that they arent harmful, or that anyone should be forced to do anything. you read what you wanted to read, instead of what was actually written

It looked to me like RajT88 was participating in a rebuttal of SoftTalker's comment. I don't think that interpretation is "reading what you wanted to read". The place you put a comment has implications for what you're arguing.

The suggestion I was "forcing" someone to accept a risk is reading what they want to read into my comment. I cannot force anyone to do anything, I am mere lines of text on a screen.

Whether I was rebutting their comment depends on the subtext you think their comment had. There could very well be a subtext for such a well worn talking point.

Re: Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

#212

Post by seanmcdirmid »

hackable_sand wrote: post #135
SoftTalker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Happy that you were honest about it, but paranoia is not healthy.

That much paranoia sounds healthy to me. It is exactly what I would tell my kid when he's old enough to drive. And if I had a daughter (there still a chance!) then I would tell her a bunch of CYA stuff also, probably much of the same things but also different things.

You can always offer to call them a cab or contact the police for them, or give them some money for the bus if its an option. If it is out in the middle of nowhere, the local police will probably help out since this kind of thing probably happens a lot.

Re: Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

#213

Post by baubino »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #209
baubino wrote: post #208

While I‘m glad that there’s an immediate safe option for women riders, in the longer term this lets Uber off the hook when they should be taking responsibility for their drivers who are functionally employees despite Uber insisting otherwise. It’s worth noting that the old school taxi companies did not have this problem of rampant sexual assault committed by their drivers. Why? Because they performed background check…

Long term it will be Waymo, and there won't need to be issues anymore because no human drivers. > It’s worth noting that the old school taxi companies did not have this problem of rampant sexual assault committed by their drivers. Wait what? Did you not read a newspaper in the 80s and 90s? If you do a google search today for "taxi driver" and "sexual assault" you will not come up with nothing. > Why? Because they per…

I only have experience in one city but I know that getting to drive for Uber is much much easier than getting a taxi driving job in the 90s. Taxi companies performed extensive background checks and while Uber claims to do so now, it’s not clear to me that they have really taken seriously the safety problem and that any random person shouldn’t be allowed as a driver. Their incentive is to get as many people driving as possible.

I never said there were no instances of sexual assault by taxi drivers; just pointing out that there’s a real crisis of rampant assault with Uber for which there are solutions that they’ve essentially refused to entertain because they don’t want to take responsibility for their drivers. I’m saying that these companies need to be held responsible for their role in this problem.

Re: Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

#214

Post by leptons »

mholm wrote: post #4

Unfortunately necessary. Essentially every girl I know has had at least one bad experience with a creepy uber driver. These are people that are entering their address and often their workplace into the app. It's a big reason why a lot of my friends are picking Waymos instead.

[flagged]

Re: Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

#215

Post by potsandpans »

slumpt_ wrote: post #67
mholm wrote: post #4

Unfortunately necessary. Essentially every girl I know has had at least one bad experience with a creepy uber driver. These are people that are entering their address and often their workplace into the app. It's a big reason why a lot of my friends are picking Waymos instead.

Fully agree and am pretty disappointed reading replies on here. Anyone familiar with the demographics of this forum? What % male is it? If you have women in your life, ask their thoughts on this. It’s easy to not understand problems that don’t exist for us.

Men disproportionately commit violent crimes, and women are the victims a lot of the time.

Culturally, the response has been to celebrate reactive perceptions, like women proudly declaring that they'd prefer to encounter a bear in the woods over a man. Or just generally dismissing or subverting the desire to be masculine.

This imbalance enables women to be socially transgressive (even criminally so) with impunity. That discussion is shot down with pithy remarks like, "well, men kill women."

I'm not really too concerned with any of this, I'm just pointing out that it does to some degree culturally exist. In some ways, it makes sense.

These threads are always filled with two sides talking past one another around this general power imbalance.

I do think this kind of surface level divisiveness is what has fueled some of the counter-reaction reactionary movements we're dealing with today.

A lot of what is disappointing to you is imo a more personal reaction to other problems that are happening.

For example, the loneliness epidemic. Culturally, immediate solutions to immediate problems can be at odds with other problems that we have limited understanding of.

I'm rambling. There is something that I want to tease out, but it's difficult to articulate.

Something like, the discourse around this has to change if we want things to actually improve. It probably includes (uncomfortably) acknowledging that we need to have healthy and positive outlets for masculinity. My sense is that it can't be good to continue down this technologically empowered segregation path, that companies will be more than willing to enable if it improves their bottom line.

Re: Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

#216

Post by seanmcdirmid »

baubino wrote: post #213
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term it will be Waymo, and there won't need to be issues anymore because no human drivers. > It’s worth noting that the old school taxi companies did not have this problem of rampant sexual assault committed by their drivers. Wait what? Did you not read a newspaper in the 80s and 90s? If you do a google search today for "taxi driver" and "sexual assault" you will not come up with nothing. > Why? Because they per…

I only have experience in one city but I know that getting to drive for Uber is much much easier than getting a taxi driving job in the 90s. Taxi companies performed extensive background checks and while Uber claims to do so now, it’s not clear to me that they have really taken seriously the safety problem and that any random person shouldn’t be allowed as a driver. Their incentive is to get as many people driving as…

Taxi drivers were notorious for sexual assaults back when they were the only game in town, it used to be a meme before we called them memes! I wouldn't be surprised that now that most of their business has moved over to ride shares, so has the crime.

Some recent data:

> London (2016): In a rare direct comparison, there were 154 allegations of rape or sexual assault where the suspect was a taxi or private hire driver (including Uber). Uber drivers were involved in 32 (roughly 20%) of those cases. During this period, Uber accounted for over 30% of journeys in London but only 20% of the reported assaults, suggesting Uber drivers were statistically less likely to be involved in an incident than traditional taxi drivers in that market.

That is London, not the USA of course. Who knows what other factors were at play.

For the USA we have:

> Uber (2017–2022): Reported 12,522 serious sexual assaults. This occurred across approximately 6.3 billion trips, meaning these incidents happened in about 0.0002% of rides.

> Reporting Bias: Modern apps have "emergency" buttons and digital trip trails that make reporting easier and more traceable. Historical taxi assaults were often only recorded if a formal police report was filed, leading to significant underreporting.

> Victim Demographics: In Uber's 2021–2022 data, 42% of reporters were drivers and 56% were riders. Historical taxi data rarely distinguished between driver-on-passenger vs. passenger-on-driver incidents.

> Internal Data: A 2024 government report found that while some taxi companies collect incident data, they treat it as internal information and do not share it with the public

> I’m saying that these companies need to be held responsible for their role in this problem.

People suck, and they always have. The only way for 100% safety is self-driving taxis.

Re: Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

#217

Post by mmooss »

dchftcs wrote: post #89
RajT88 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world we live in is one where women being assaulted is an order of magnitude larger problem than women falsely accusing someone of assault.

You need to develop some empathy and learn that false accusations can destroy lives and families. You have no right to force someone accept even a 1% chance that something like that happens, even if it's less prevalent than assaults.

So could a car accident, but you still drive. There are lots of risks in the world; they need to be assessed by their likelihood x damage.

Re: Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

#218

Post by mmooss »

leptons wrote: post #214
mholm wrote: post #4

Unfortunately necessary. Essentially every girl I know has had at least one bad experience with a creepy uber driver. These are people that are entering their address and often their workplace into the app. It's a big reason why a lot of my friends are picking Waymos instead.

[flagged]

You seem afraid of non-hetero sexuality at every turn.

Even if lesbians are just as likely to be dangerous creeps - which I doubt because it seems like relative physical strength is a major factor - the number of lesbians relative to the number of hetero males makes the risk far lower. The number of trans people is an order of magnitude less.

> you don't even really know if the person driving was born as a man or a woman, or what their proclivities are.

You never did. People have been gay and trans for all of history.

Re: Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

#219

Post by mmooss »

potsandpans wrote: post #215
slumpt_ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree and am pretty disappointed reading replies on here. Anyone familiar with the demographics of this forum? What % male is it? If you have women in your life, ask their thoughts on this. It’s easy to not understand problems that don’t exist for us.

Men disproportionately commit violent crimes, and women are the victims a lot of the time. Culturally, the response has been to celebrate reactive perceptions, like women proudly declaring that they'd prefer to encounter a bear in the woods over a man. Or just generally dismissing or subverting the desire to be masculine. This imbalance enables women to be socially transgressive (even criminally so) with impunity. Th…

I think it's much simpler: People who have power can blithely ignore the problems of others and then say those people are 'overreacting'. Also the powerful react very strongly to any threat to the status quo that gives them power; it is an outrage to them.

In the West it happens with males, white people, religious groups, political groups, and much more.

> enables women to be socially transgressive

That usually means, transgressing the status quo. Women (and men) are free people who can do whatever they want, unless they actually injure someone else. Exercising their freedom isn't transgression, it's the norm.

> even criminally so

What does that refer to?

Re: Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

#220

Post by lelanthran »

irl_zebra wrote: post #32
SoftTalker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This incident is creepy enough that I would also not agree to a give a random stranger a ride home, absent any additional context or mitigations. Maybe to avoid waking up in an ice bath with my liver gone. But, to not give a ride because of some perceived idea that they would claim you assaulted them or something is a bit "this person should go touch some grass" or whatever.

> But, to not give a ride because of some perceived idea that they would claim you assaulted them or something is a bit "this person should go touch some grass" or whatever.

Pretty much the same advice any normal person gives their son; a single baseless claim from a woman is enough to ruin a man's life.

"Unless you already know the woman, don't spend time alone with her" is pretty good advice.

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