In the news we usually hear about how ride-sharing drivers have committed crimes against passengers, but that’s not to say that the reverse isn’t true or hasn’t happened either. Since it is essentially a stranger getting into another car of a stranger, it’s hard to say what could happen. This is why Uber has announced several new safety features for both its drivers and riders.One of those features is the Ride Check, in which based on sensors in smartphones and also GPS, it will attempt to detect any irregularities which will then prompt users to indicate that everything is okay. According to Uber, “For example, if there is a long, unexpected stop during a trip, both the rider and the driver will receive a Ride Check notification to ask if everything is OK.”
There will also be a Driver Emergency Button which as its name implies, will let drivers quickly access emergency features. “With this Safety Toolkit, drivers can quickly access a menu of safety features, such as Share Trip, from the home screen. They can connect directly to 911 through the app, and see their real-time location—both on a map and as an address—so they can verbally share it with the 911 operator.”
There will also be safety features for riders, where it will conceal their locations in the driver’s pickup and dropoff history once the ride has been concluded. Once the ride comes to an end, all drivers have is a general area of where the trip started or ended. These are just some of the features that have been announced, some of which are live and some of which will be rolled out over the coming months.
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