Is Uber Safe for Passengers?

Widespread Uber passenger safety issues, specifically driver assaults, have been in the news recently. Thousands of sexual assault victins have already come forward. No one is sure how many more victims may be suffering day by day. In response, many Uber drivers put cameras in their vehicles. But not every ride is visually recorded. Furthermore, there’s little evidence to suggest that cameras effectively deter misconduct, especially since assault is such a spur-of-the-moment thing.

Many observers fear that driver sexual assaults are only the tip of the iceberg, in terms of Uber passenger safety issues. Most Uber drivers understand that they have a legal duty to control their behavior. Most Uber drivers do not understand that they also have a legal duty to provide safe and secure spaces for their passengers. 

When Uber drivers intentionally or unintentionally put passengers at risk, a Newark personal injury lawyer stands up for the legal and financial rights of these victims. The company has shown that it will do little or nothing to protect passenger safety, and government bureaucrats have done little more than point fingers and hold press conferences. A Newark personal injury lawyer, in contrast, obtains the compensation victims need and deserve and also forces Uber to change the way it does business.

Inadequate Driver Screening

To meet escalating demand, Uber has watered down its driver screening process to almost nothing. Most new Uber drivers have no rideshare operator experience or carried strangers in their back seats. 

The Uber onboarding process, which includes reviewing driver qualifications, takes only about two weeks. New drivers must play safety videos, but there’s no guarantee they actually watched them. This brief onboarding process sets the stage for a third party negligent hiring claim.

If a company, like Uber, hires an incompetent individual to do a job, and that individual commits an intentional tort, like assault, the company could be vicariously liable for damages. Special rules apply if the incompetency is a prior criminal record. Other incompetent traits include a short temper, poor communication skills, and difficulty concentrating. Uber doesn’t screen drivers for these things.

More than likely, Uber doesn’t properly screen drivers because the company doesn’t care if a driver is competent or incompetent. The company just needs warm bodies to hold steering wheels. The company needs lots of warm bodies, because according to one report, less than 5 percent of Uber drivers stay with the company more than a year.

To reduce driver turnover, the company often doesn’t effectively discipline drivers who step out of line. Legally, this failure constitutes negligent supervision, another third-party liability theory. Proper supervision means taking all misconduct claims seriously, investigating them thoroughly and transparently, and taking action based solely on the results of that investigation. Anything short of that is negligent.

Driver-on-Passenger Assault

Uber driver sexual assault is an umbrella term which includes several kinds of sexual misconduct aimed at passengers. Major forms of non-contact sexual assault include:

• Stalking (staying at a dropoff location for an unreasonable amount of time or returning to it for any reason other than another pickup or dropoff),
• False imprisonment (taking a different route other than the agreed-upon one or refusing to let a passenger out),
• Verbal sexual assault, and
• General non-contact sexual assault (disconcerting looks into a rear-view mirror).

A North Jersey personal injury lawyer typically uses the intentional infliction of emotional distress doctrine to obtain compensation in these cases. In the Garden State, the element of IIED are:

• Intentional or Reckless Conduct: Intentional refers to the conduct, not the result. Dave may not intend to cause emotional distress if he makes lewd remarks about Sally, but he intentionally made the comments. Recklessness basically means the actor doesn’t care if the act causes emotional distress or not.
• Extreme or Outrageous Conduct: If Dave tells Sally she looks pretty, his statement may qualify as extreme or outrageous conduct, depending on his tone of voice and some other factors. If Dave makes a more lurid comment that shouldn’t be reprinted on a family-friendly website, his conduct was clearly extreme or outrageous.
• Causation: The conduct must cause the requisite level of emotional distress. If the victim was unusually sensitive to certain conduct, a South Jersey personal injury lawyer can still obtain maximum compensation for the victim. Uber cannot blame victims for its drivers misconduct.
• Severe Emotional Distress: The line between severe and not severe is very thin, to say the least. Usually, if the emotional distress prompted a public follow-up, like a social media post or a comment to someone else, that emotional distress was severe.

Contact sexual and non-sexual assault is usually actionable if the victim sustained a harmful or offensive touch. Physical injury isn’t a requirement. Due to the nature of a harmful or offensive touch, victims are usually entitled to outsized noneconomic losses in these situations.

Passenger-on-Passenger Assault

Driver-on-passenger assault could involve the negligent hiring theory or the negligent supervision theory. Uber has a legal duty to look for red flags of misbehavior, such as prior similar incidents on a person’s employment record (negligent hiring). Furthermore, if drivers commit assaults, Uber cannot sweep the incident under the rug (negligent supervision).

The same two rules apply in passenger-on-passenger assault cases. Uber drivers have a duty to break up arguments between passengers before those arguments become violent.

In New Jersey, the duty is usually a duty of reasonable care, since paying passengers are commercial invitees (permission to be in the car and economic benefit to Uber). Usually,the duty of reasonable care requires individuals to go out of their way to prevent assaults and other injuries.

Falls

The duty of care begins when the driver pulls up to a pickup point and ends when the passenger exits the vehicle at the dropoff point. 

External safety is a major issue. Many drivers pick up and drop off passengers at designated locations without any regard to inclement weather or the passenger’s mobility impairments. The duty of reasonable care requires more.

Pick up points, and especially drop off points, must also be safe locations. Many passengers asked to be picked up or dropped off at unlit non-intersection points. Such places may be convenient for drivers and passengers, but they aren’t safe for drivers or passengers.

Contact a Diligent Lawyer

Injury victims are entitled to significant compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury lawyer in Newark, contact CourtLaw. We do not charge upfront legal fees in these matters.