- Two strangers get into a car.
One of them harasses the other.
Who's the bouncer in this situation?
Uber and Lyft dominate the American rideshare industry,
connecting over 109 million users on their apps.
And these rides are meant to keep us safe,
especially after a long night out.
In fact, both Uber and Lyft incorporate safety
into their marketing strategies.
And Lyft's co-founder and president
has gone on TV touting their safety standards.
- In the early days, we instituted
a criminal background check, a driving record check.
We do continuous background checks,
so we're always looking to innovate around safety.
- But hold up.
It actually isn't that innovative.
Since 2014, over 120 Uber and Lyft drivers
have been accused of sexual assault.
And the allegations sound like something
from a Liam Neeson movie.
- [Announcer] Victims kidnapped, raped,
trapped in cars with electronic locks.
One victim told police she was forced
to drink her driver's urine.
- So as Uber and Lyft continue to grow,
taking in over 13 billion dollars last year,
shouldn't they be held accountable
for their riders' and drivers' safety?
- [Yoonj] First off,
it's not just passengers who are at risk.
Imani drives for Uber some nights after work.
- When I go online, that's the safety toolkit.
I wish there was a more discreet way
to kind of, like a panic button.
- Yeah.
- If you needed immediate attention.
Because what if somebody's trying to assault you
and they see that you're seeking for help?
That might make them do something else to you.
- [Yoonj] Right.
- So if there was something that was a little more discreet
if you needed immediate assistance in that case.
- Right, like a button that's not red.
Have you had any situations
where you felt like you were unsafe?
- I was driving Saturday night,
and it wasn't too late, it was maybe eight o'clock at night.
But this guy was already super drunk.
He was hitting on me and he's trying
to change location in the car.
- [Yoonj] Oh my god.
- He was refusing to get out the car at one point
when I pulled up to the destination.
And he was trying to climb into the front seat.
- No.
- And I didn't even know what to do
because I'm just like, trying to disengage him.
I didn't know what to do, I felt super uncomfortable.
- I think it's scary, in some ways,
more risky for drivers, because passengers
don't go through the background checks that drivers
go through, right? - They don't,
and they need to. - So technically,
the passengers could be anybody.
- [Yoonj] To be fair, Uber has made improvements
since they got their new CEO in 2017.
And on December 5th of this year,
they released an 84-page report
detailing two years of sexual assaults.
A sign that they're at least acknowledging the problem.
Both companies have pending sexual assault lawsuits,
but Lyft is reportedly more problematic.
Kathleen sued Lyft after she was allegedly harassed
in a ride she took back in September.
- So, I was in the backseat and I was looking at my phone.
- And then when you looked up, what was he doing?
- He was playing with himself.
- And for how long did he do that?
- He did it the entire ride.
- Which was how long?
- 45 minutes.
- For 45 minutes?
- Yes.
- He was touching himself in the car with you right there?
- Yes, yep.
I was able to record it on and off while he was doing that.
- Were you scared?
- I was terrified, I was mad, I was appalled,
I was a whole bunch of emotions.
- [Yoonj Voiceover] Alison Turkos is also suing Lyft
after she was allegedly assaulted in 2017.
- It was a Friday night going into a Saturday
and I was out with two of my friends.
And so, I ordered a Lyft and I had wanted to go
from one neighborhood in Brooklyn to another,
approximately 15- to 17-minute ride at 2:30 in the morning.
- [Yoonj] Instead, the driver turned on
the child locks, trapping her, and took her to another state.
- He then proceeded to pull a gun on me.
We pulled into a very isolated park area
where two men were waiting for us.
And then for about 25 minutes, the Lyft driver
and two other men proceeded to rape me
over and over and over again.
- [Yoonj] Stephen Estey's law firm is representing
over a hundred plaintiffs against ridesharing companies.
- How many people have contacted you
about an assault on a rideshare?
- Hundreds, if not thousands.
- Over how long?
- Over about a year now.
- Is there a pattern to these stories?
- In most of the stories, it's late at night,
it's usually the woman's intoxicated,
had been drinking and trying to do the right thing.
But the problem is the predators know
when they can have access to these vulnerable women.
- What percentage of the complaints,
how much of that is Lyft and how much of it is Uber?
- If you look at the number of cases we have,
we've got either half or more are Lyft cases.
- So proportionately, Lyft is smaller in the market share,
but if it's 50 percent of the complaints, that means it's--
- It's a greater problem.
- Do you feel that there's been
a different response from Lyft versus Uber?
- Uber, recently, has been more responsive to the clients,
whereas Lyft has been scorched earth.
- [Yoonj] Kathleen and Alison
have felt the scorched earth attitude firsthand.
- I wrote a review in the Lyft app,
because there's no immediate number
I can call to report it.
- Wow, and have you heard from them since?
- From Lyft?
- Mm hmm. - No.
- Nothing? - Not at all.
- How about the cops?
- The cops came after my interview.
I believe a few weeks ago I was told
that he surrendered his license
and then yesterday he got arrested and got booked.
- Wow, so this was three months after it happened?
- Yes.
- So technically he could have been out there
driving still for three months?
- Right, most likely.
- After everything that he did and Lyft knew
and they still didn't take him off the app?
- Right.
- I'm emailing with Lyft and they're saying,
"We will refund you approximately $93,
but we're still gonna charge you
for what the original ride was."
So then I had to pay Lyft $12.81
to be kidnapped, raped, and trafficked across state lines.
- What happened to the guy that was driving you?
- He was still driving for months.
- [Yoonj] I wasn't able to determine
whether the driver's still on the road today.
- So I reached out to Lyft for an interview
in response to these allegations.
They didn't provide me with an actual live warm body,
but they responded with an email.
"Like many companies, Lyft has a process
"for working with law enforcement
"while abiding by our privacy policy.
"And pursuant to our privacy policy,
"we require a subpoena or other valid legal process
"in order to disclose user information."
Which I understand, since a lot of
tech companies' responsibility
is to safeguard their user's privacy.
It's just, where's the line between safeguarding privacy
and following through on safety concerns?
Sometimes it's not always
up to the companies to keep us safe.
There are things that riders can do
to better protect ourselves.
And I'm about to go talk to a family
who's made it their mission to educate others.
- It's not a hundred percent real yet.
- [Yoonj] Samantha Josephson
was a senior in college, when, in March,
she got into a car thinking it was her Uber.
The driver, who didn't work for Uber at all,
kidnapped her, and her body was later found
in a nearby field.
Samantha's family responded to the murder
by starting the What's My Name Foundation.
- We started the campaign in Samantha's honor,
Samantha's name.
- When it started, and we spoke with Samantha's friends,
we found out that a lot of times,
when the ride share would come,
they would say to the driver,
"Are you here for Sami?"
And the driver would say, "Yes."
So we thought of switching it the other way,
it would ensure that they would be getting
into the right, correct car.
- Right.
Because the premise is essentially asking the driver,
- What's my name? - What's my name
as a passenger.
- My biggest thing when we were in South Carolina
and we went to the first vigil was,
what can we do to make an impact
and how can we change everything to make it safer
and eliminate the impersonating?
- And Sydney, do you take Uber still or rideshares?
- I do, but I've definitely been more cautious.
Like I said, I now ask for my name before I get in.
- [Yoonj] Right.
- And I feel like my friends have become the same way.
- [Yoonj] The Josephsons helped pass laws
in three states to mandate that rideshares
make license plate information
easily accessible to passengers.
And they're now working on a federal law.
- And in that federal law,
we have in there about technology.
Some type of response, of a code.
Having front license plates on the cars.
So, if you're gonna participate in a rideshare industry,
then a car has to have the front license plate.
- [Yoonj] But there are still no laws
directly holding rideshare companies accountable
for rider and driver safety.
So in the meantime, it's really up to the companies.
- What would you like to see Lyft do to improve safety?
- To improve safety, I would like to see them
install cameras in the actual vehicles.
That way, it's gonna be a huge deterrent effect
because a driver who knows they're being filmed
is less likely to do bad things to the passengers.
- [Yoonj] Overall, sexual assault
is the most under-reported crime there is.
So rideshare companies like Lyft,
can't say they're all for safety
when they seem to be ignoring survivors' stories.