In report, Uber discloses 3,045 sexual assaults, 9 murders, and 58 people killed in crashes out of its 1.3B US rides in 2018

In its first safety report, the ride-hailing company detailed sexual assaults, murders and fatal crashes through its platform. — SAN FRANCISCO …

New York Times 2019-12-06 Kate Conger

Context & Ripple Effects

This is the report Uber promised in its S-1 filing, where it committed to publishing 2019 safety data as part of cleaning up its pre-IPO record. The baseline it replaces is stark: back in 2016, responding to a leaked trove of customer-service tickets, Uber acknowledged just five rape claims and fewer than 170 sexual assault claims over nearly three years.

Framing matters here: by pairing 3,045 sexual assaults and 58 crash deaths against 1.3 billion rides, Uber converts an IPO liability into a denominator play — presenting incident rates rather than raw counts as the headline.

First-order effects

Riders, drivers, and city regulators get their first quantified baseline for assault and crash rates on Uber trips, ending the era when the company's own leaked support tickets were the only public evidence.
Uber simultaneously discloses that only 37% of the 464 rape cases in 2017–2018 were reported to law enforcement, putting its own in-app reporting pathway under scrutiny at the moment of publication.

Second-order effects

Rival platforms face pressure to publish comparable safety data or be positioned as less transparent, since Uber has now set the disclosure template for the category.
The low law-enforcement reporting share forces a rework of how incidents flow from app reports to police records — a channel Uber controls and can no longer leave undocumented.

Third-order effects

Follow-on reports show the metric becoming institutionalized but also contested: by the next release Uber counted 3,824 sexual assault reports in 2019–2020, down 38%, even as fatal physical assaults rose 18% — evidence that volume-based disclosures can mask shifts toward more severe incidents.
Court records later revealed the structural limit of voluntary disclosure: 400,181 US trips carried sexual misconduct reports from 2017 to 2022 while Uber had disclosed only 12,522 — making self-reported safety figures a litigation target and strengthening the case for externally audited or mandated platform-safety reporting.

The trend: Platform companies are shifting from opaque incident handling toward standardized public safety disclosure, but litigation keeps exposing the gap between what platforms voluntarily report and what their systems actually recorded.

Discussion

@dkhos Dara Khosrowshahi on x
Doing the right thing means counting, confronting, and taking action to end sexual assault. My heart is with every survivor of this all-too-pervasive crime. Our work will never be done, but we take an important step forward today. http://uber.com/safety (1/3)
@alexstamos Alex Stamos on x
The reaction to the NY Times' (accurate) child safety series and Uber's safety numbers is helping separate those commentators who actually care about the abuse from those looking for lazy dunks. A demonstration of why so few companies voluntarily publish anything.
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
uber ceo letter to staff on the report https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@tonywest Tony West on x
Today @Uber does what no other tech company has done: voluntarily publish a Safety Report detailing our greatest challenges and how we're addressing them. Avoiding tough topics like sexual assault is common but we believe it's time for a new approach. http://www.uber.com/...
@noahshachtman Noah Shachtman on x
How do you justify taking an @Uber after this? https://twitter.com/...
@laurenpeikoff Lauren Peikoff on x
WOW: Uber received 5,981 reports of sexual abuse between 2017 and 2018. 235 reports of rape in 2018. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
@bethanyshondark Bethany S. Mandel on x
This makes other women apprehensive about taking Uber right https://twitter.com/...
@johnpaczkowski John Paczkowski on x
Previously: Uber tries to convince us that thousands of customer service complaints with the word “rape” in them are inflated because of people with names like “don draper” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@dhh @dhh on x
These numbers are just astounding... now combine this with the company's history of undermining and investigating rape victims. Maybe think twice about getting into an Uber by yourself? https://twitter.com/...
@briannawu Brianna Wu on x
If you don't measure something you can't improve it. Glad to see @uber releasing the data publicly for sexual assaults. Most tech companies would bury difficult information, like they do with the number of women they hire for engineering roles. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@edbott Ed Bott on x
These are horrible numbers but also reflective of the imperfect and extremely violent world we live in. I'm encouraged that they reported this and we can have a conversation about what it means. https://twitter.com/...
@uber_support @uber_support on x
@MitchGayns Thanks for reaching out about the US Safety Report, @MitchGayns. Our Uber Support team isn't able to answer questions directly, but you can learn more here: https://www.uber.com/.... If you're interested in Uber's overall approach to safety, see more at https://www.ub…
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
Absolutely awful. Yes, the problem of predatory taxi drivers predates Uber. But the scale here is sickening https://twitter.com/...
@amy_siskind @amy_siskind on x
OMG! Boycott this company: “In a lengthy report, which divides sexual misconduct into 21 categories, Uber said it recorded 235 rapes and thousands more cases of assault.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@calbucci Marcelo Calbucci on x
I'm surprised at the outrage at Uber. Do you know how many people are raped and murdered by taxi drivers around the world? What if Uber is 10X safer than getting into a taxi? https://twitter.com/...
@carmen50 BiCoastal Elitist on x
When I'm forced to use Uber or Lyft and I don't feel safe, I call a friend and talk the whole way. I shouldn't have to do this. https://twitter.com/...
@appyg99 Apoorva Govind on x
99.9% of Uber trips ended without any issue; only 0.1% ended with a safety-related report (mostly complaints about driving behaviors, like harsh braking); only 0.0003% of trips had a type of serious incident! Loving the transparency https://www.uber.com/...
@dealbook @dealbook on x
“There is no law, regulation or lawsuit that is forcing Uber to make this data available,” said Tony West, Uber's chief legal officer. “We are doing this, frankly, because the public has a right to know.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
@wagatwe Wagatwe Wanjuki on x
So I am glad that Uber is releasing these numbers, but I am also turned off by the way they're doing this. “most don't reveal this data!” “don't forget sexual assault is common everywhere!” It reads as a press release meant to garner applause. https://www.uber.com/...
@jboyolee Bo Young Lee on x
As a survivor of sexual assault, It is heartening to work for a company that is putting all it's resources behind building the safest platform possible. Transparency and accountability is hard but necessary to ensure we are doing the right thing. https://twitter.com/...
@s_m_i Stacy-Marie Ishmael on x
“Drivers, passengers and third parties were all murdered. In cases of rape, Uber said that 92 percent of the reported victims were riders. But drivers reported other types of sexual assaults at roughly the same rate as riders, Uber said.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
@brianmrosenthal Brian M. Rosenthal on x
New report: During all Uber rides in 2018, there were: —9 murders —58 people killed in crashes —3,045 sexual assaults (The company noted that 99.99 percent of rides were safe) https://www.nytimes.com/..., by @KatieConger
@dmartosko David Martosko on x
Context: Uber does 1.15 billion rides per year. So ... roughly 3 incidents of sexual assault per *million* rides. Let's say 0.0003%. That's better odds than women get at universities. 20% report sexual assault in college (per DOJ), so *5%* of any large group per school year. http…
@annehelen Anne Helen Petersen on x
this makes me nauseous https://twitter.com/...
@rumpfshaker Sarah Rumpf on x
The only truly acceptable number is, of course, zero, but this is data from a period in which “an average of more than 3.1 million trips took place each day.” As a woman who has frequently traveled the US alone, I strongly prefer Uber/Lyft to taxis, mostly for safety/reliability.…
@davidsonjess22 Jess Davidson on x
These numbers from Uber are scary, but my take is that they're reflective of the reality of sexual violence, not of something unique to Uber. I'm grateful for @Uber's transparency on these #'s, and want other gig economy companies to release the same data http://www.uber.com/...
@mcbyrne @mcbyrne on x
Weird. @uber didn't bother to disclose the 3000 assaults to passengers. Zero tolerance is kinda meaningless with the reality of a small town worth of sexual assaults. That is some transparency. @UltraViolet thoughts? https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@susanlitv Susan Li on x
Interesting that it's split almost 50/50 in assaults reported by passengers & drivers #Uber $uber the NYPD received 1,125 complaints of sex offenses in the transit system during the same time period #ridehailing $lyft https://twitter.com/...
@geoffreyfowler Geoffrey A. Fowler on x
How safe is Uber? - 235 people were raped in U.S. Ubers last year - Drivers report sexual assaults at about the same rate as passengers - 107 people died in U.S. Uber-related crashes in 2017-2018 - 0.0003% of trips report a critical safety incident https://wapo.st/38deGE8
@manan @manan on x
this is the right frame and context for this data. The journalists have been hating on Uber as if Uber is responsible and Dara committed these crimes. https://twitter.com/...
@alexstamos Alex Stamos on x
The Uber example is also indicative of a basic problem in measurement: only the companies that care to measure will know about their abuse. So we have (large) numbers from the largest players and know nothing about the long tail and little about pre-tech prevalence.
@gregbensinger Greg Bensinger on x
Wow. 3,000 sex assault victims is A LOT and it's just U.S. and a lot of victims don't come forward. The worldwide figure has to be much much higher. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@tomsteyer Tom Steyer on x
This is appalling. We need to regulate tech giants like @Uber to ensure they put safety first—and we need to do more to address the horrific reality of rampant sexual assault happening every day across our country. https://twitter.com/...
@alexstamos Alex Stamos on x
I think there is a basic disconnect between those people who see various kinds of horrible types of abuse as: a) Innate in humanity b) Only created by tech platforms c) Innate but amplified or enhanced by tech In most cases, c is the right mindset.
@jstrauss J-Strizzle on x
The @TechmemeChatter tweets about this Uber report are like a Rorschach test of hot takes. https://twitter.com/...

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