- As ride-sharing giant Uber
began to expand around the globe,
it encouraged drivers to sign up for their app
with promises of a better life.
- If there's any country that stood to benefit
from Uber's promises about a path to economic growth
for a large portion of unemployed people,
it was South Africa.
- It's really hard to find a job that pays, you know, not pay
but you'd make as much as Uber, which is not really much,
but in SA it's decent, you know.
- I basically got off a plane
and started getting into Uber cars
and striking up conversations, and South Africans love to talk,
so I heard a lot of stories.
And, unfortunately, a lot of those stories
were very dark and very bleak.
- Many drivers in Cape Town rent the cars
they make their living in, and after Uber's commission,
much of what's left goes to car payments and gas.
- The typical Uber driver in South Africa
is driving 12-plus hours a day,
and they are still barely making ends meet.
- No, it's not good money.
It's not good money because we buy expensive petrol
and Uber, you know, is still taking
that commission, the same.
- They are also carrying a ton of risk.
Timothee is a driver.
So, when he was picking up passengers and dropping them off
in the area of rival taxi operators,
they surrounded his car,
and he describes a situation where he was taken from his car
and put into another car and taken somewhere private,
where he says the police couldn't interfere
with what they were doing.
- So, as they said to me, "If you don't give me
5,000 cash, we're gonna burn you and then we burn the car."
- Who was this? - It was the taxi drivers.
This taxi drivers.
- Yeah.
- Timothee was released only after the man he rents his car
from paid the kidnappers the equivalent of $300.
- Uber didn't create this problem
of violence in Cape Town,
but problems that are endemic to Cape Town
were magnified for a lot of these people
who chose to get in a car and drive for Uber.
- In several countries, including South Africa,
Uber introduced the option of paying for rides with cash.
The company saw an opportunity to increase ridership
among people without bank accounts or credit cards.
- Having cash in Uber cars in these places that tend to be
more violent creates an opportunity for criminals.
There are, in Cape Town, gangs who quickly realized
that they could order an Uber
with the press of a button on their phone
and have a car pull up to them that had cash inside of it.
- Many drivers complained that cash made their jobs
even more dangerous.
- Ultimately, Uber decided to give drivers
the option of having cash payments in their car or not.
For a lot of drivers, this was a very tough decision
because you're suddenly putting the burden
of whether or not they're going to accept more risk.
- In a statement to The Washington Post,
Uber said it has taken steps
to improve driver safety in South Africa,
including the ability to reject cash transactions,
more up front information in the app
about passenger destinations, and a button drivers can press
to call emergency security and medical services.
- And a lot of the times that you raise questions
to even drivers in South Africa about,
you know, why are you doing this job?
You know, why would you take on this risk?
The answer that you get is, "It's better than nothing.
It's better than no job."