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Feminism

An Alarming Number Of Women Have Felt Unsafe In A Rideshare, And That’s Not Okay

Not even the "safe" option feels safe.

Content warning: this story discusses sexual harassment, violence and assault.

The death of a South Carolina student who may have mistaken another car for her Uber is a terrifying story. Samantha Josephson’s friends said goodbye to her outside a bar after she’d called for a ride, but she didn’t make it home. Police believe the 21-year-old was picked up not by the car she’d requested, but by the man who’s now been charged with her murder, and couldn’t escape the car due to the child lock being activated on the rear doors.

Social media is now full of tips for avoiding a similar situation: check the number plates, make sure your driver confirms your name before you ask them theirs, sit in the front so they can’t use the child lock.

But even the “right” car can be the wrong one.

Unfortunately, almost every woman you know has felt unsafe in a cab or a ride-share – and it’s something we have to think about every time, just as we do when we walk home alone.

Every single time I get in a cab or rideshare car alone, I wonder if it’s better to sit in the front (within groping distance/signalling openness to conversation or invasion of privacy) or the back (where they could turn the child lock on). 

23% of American women have reported a driver for inappropriate behaviour; London banned rideshares in 2017 after nearly 50 attacks, and women were angry because even with that stat they felt safer in Ubers than black cabs.

I asked around the GOAT office, and within 20 minutes I had over a dozen stories ranging from simple precautions women feel they have to take every time they climb into a car driven by a stranger, to criminal behaviour.

 

I shared a taxi with a friend and when we dropped her off at her stop she said “Text me when you get home.” The driver got annoyed about the comment and said to me – now alone in the car with him – “What does that mean? She thinks I’m going to do something to you?” Nothing like a driver angrily bringing up the fact that he has the power to hurt you to make you feel safe!

I’ve had a guy give me his card as he was “a photographer” and wanted to take photos of me. I’ve also had a guy lock all the doors and pull his dick out. After I realised was he wasn’t my Uber at all… just some creeper… Bad times. I went to the police about him.

It was the first day of a new job and I took an Uber, because it was early morning and I felt it was the safest option. I sat in the front seat, because it felt rude to sit in the back.
My driver was talking to me in a really intrusive way, which I guess was meant to be comforting. He put his hand on my leg and left it there. I tried to laugh it off and move away but I realised how trapped I was and I couldn’t jeopardise my safety anymore, so I said nothing.
When I got to my new office, he wouldn’t open the door until I got my phone out and put his number in it.
I still have his number in my phone today.
Since that day, I’ve never sat in the front seat, never been directly dropped at my house and ALWAYS dropped a pin or shared my location with a friend.

I got in a taxi in Spain with a girlfriend of mine and the driver wouldn’t respond to any of our questions despite him speaking English. We noticed he was driving a route completely different to what the map was showing him and we tried to ask where he was going but were just ignored. Me and my friend kept tracking his route out loud to each other (“Where is he going? The hotel is at the next right” type thing) so if he was up to anything dodgy he would know we were onto him and hopefully he would freak out. We got to the hotel eventually. We don’t really know if he was a creep or just taking the long route so he could charge us more, but we both felt VERY uneasy and walked everywhere for the rest of the trip.

 

Once I got in the back of one with a girlfriend late at night after a few drinks and we were making out a bit, and the driver made several creepy comments about enjoying it. I’m bi, and I’ve never had a driver make so much as a peep when I’ve been kissing a guy in the backseat. Not once.

I got a cab back from the clubs (when I was living 45 mins away) with a friend (we were 18), and the cab driver was very taken with us and told us if we were ever in trouble to call him and he would come. He made us put his number in our phones. Then when we got dropped off he opened his boot and there was a rifle in there.
Luckily we made him drop us at the top of the street so he didn’t know what house we were in but… yep.

This is just the first story that comes to mind for each of the women who literally sit within metres of me. Imagine how many more there are.

And if you’re a woman (or regularly read as queer or non-binary), well, you don’t have to imagine.

Here are more. And more. And more.

We do everything we can to be safe. We walk home with our keys between our knuckles, worried that we’ll be blamed if someone chooses to attack us, because walking home isn’t “safe”.

And we ride in cars with strangers, clutching our phones with our knuckles white, because not walking home isn’t safe either.