Ride-sharing apps are extremely helpful for people who have no vehicles of their own, especially when they prefer riding in a private vehicle. However, riding alone comes with its own risks. Uber has already released a few safety features for passengers, and the company has made the settings for those simpler in the latest update.
Uber's Imrpoved Safety Features
Even though the drivers for Uber are carefully screened by the company, you can never have too many safety measures still. With that said, Uber has made it so the app's safety features can now be automated, which can contribute to a customer's safety significantly.
Users can now set up their safety preferences through the settings of the app by tapping the blue safety shield during a trip. There are four features that riders can customize, all of which can be automated and scheduled, as per the blog post.
The first one is the RideCheck feature, which will detect if the car the rider is on goes off-course or stops unexpectedly. It will also be triggered if the trip ends early or if the ride sends an in-app check-in. The rider can choose how frequently the check-ins will occur.
In the event that the feature is triggered, Uber will contact the rider to determine what the issue is and if everything is okay. The company will also offer resources to help the situation, should the customer ask for them.
There's also PIN verification, wherein riders have the option to receive a four-digit PIN code that the driver of the Uber ride will be provided with. Before the rider enters the car, they can verify it with the driver to make sure they're getting in the Uber ride they called for.
As for Audio Recording, it allows riders to record what goes on in the vehicle during the trip and can be used if the customer reports a safety incident. It will then be shared with Uber to verify the events, which can streamline the report.
The company assures that the recordings are encrypted and stored securely on the rider's device. It will be locked and no one else, not even the company, will have access to it unless the rider permits them to hear it.
The Share My Trip feature lets the app automatically share the rider's live location with a designated individual so that they would know where the car is at all times. The details can be shared with a friend or a family member.
Uber Safety Report
Reports revealed that Uber recorded 998 reports of sexual assault on its platform in the US in 2020, which the company disclosed around June 2022. According to the statistics, the more severe sexual assaults made up about 0.002% of the overall trips between 2019 and 2020.
According to CNN, 91% of the victims were riders whole 7% were drivers. About 81% of those victims were women and about 15% were comprised of men. The data shows that the percentage of male victims has nearly doubled since the previous report.
In the same period, Uber revealed that there have been 20 fatalities as a result of physical assaults. Out of all the cases, 15 of them were riders. With the new safety features, both riders and drivers have a bigger chance of keeping such incidents from happening.
