Lyft announces safety changes amid sexual assault and rape allegations

Lyft announced Tuesday it is making a handful of safety updates following a spate of lawsuits alleging the ride-hailing company fails to protect riders and inadequately handles reports of sexual assault and rape.

Victims and an attorney involved in the latest lawsuit criticized the changes as a public relations move that does not go far enough.

In a blog post, Lyft said it will implement a "smart trip" notification system for rides with unexplained delays and will require drivers to complete community safety education. 

“We don’t take lightly any instances where someone’s safety is compromised, especially in the rideshare industry, including the allegations of assault in the news last week,” John Zimmer, Lyft president and co-founder, said in the post. “The onus is on all of us to learn from any incident, whether it occurs on our platform or not, and then work to help prevent them.”

The announcement came less than a week after a new lawsuit, covered in a USA TODAY report that included accounts from women who say they were raped by Lyft drivers. Of the 14 women who filed suit last week, only one says she was told by the company that her driver was removed from the app. 

Lyft spokeswoman Lauren Alexander was able to verify that eleven drivers were permanently deactivated, up from eight last week, although she declined to say when.

More:Rape, assault allegations mount against Lyft in what new suit calls 'sexual predator crisis'

Michael Bomberger, the attorney who filed the latest suit, called the announcement “a cheap public relations stunt.”

“Lyft has been aware of the staggering number of assaults and rapes that occur in their vehicles for years. They continue to conceal those numbers from the public and Lyft customers,” Bomberger said in a statement. “That is not a commitment to safety. It is a commitment to profits.”

In its announcement Tuesday, Lyft said it is partnering with RAINN, the country’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. RAINN thanked Lyft for a $1.5 million donation to the organization in a statement and said it will help the company create mandatory safety education and strengthen its company guidelines. 

In-app access to 911 was made available to all riders on Tuesday. Mandatory training will go into effect this fall, Lyft said, and the smart trip check-ins will go into effect sometime later this year.

For survivors, all efforts to prevent future abuse are welcome. But some said Tuesday’s announcement failed to fully acknowledge the scope of the problem.

One woman filed suit against Lyft in August, claiming she was raped by a driver in 2017 after a night out drinking with friends. She said the company’s statement that it will continue to raise the bar on safety is “laughable.”

“Is rape where they set the bar?” said the woman, who requested anonymity because of her pending legal action. “They’ve known about these issues for a long time… Now it’s going public more they’re just trying to fix their image.”

The "smart trip" notification system is aimed at experiences like hers –– she says her trip took double the amount of time it should have. But, she said, it puts the onus on the riders, who are not always in a place to use their phones to get help. In her case, she says she woke up to find the driver on top of her inside her apartment.

"It sounds good as a safety net. But how many times have you been in situations, you get in a car and your phone dies? You're drunk and you’re not in your right state of mind?" she said. "For any woman to feel safe, she needs to know she's not going into cars with strangers who will take advantage of her in a vulnerable state."

Rachel Lovell, a research assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University who studies sexual assault and violence prevention, said the tech solutions announced by Lyft Tuesday are a step toward greater monitoring and may ease the reporting process.

But she said the best way to prevent sexual violence is adequately addressing cases when they do arise.

“There has to be some sort of hard hammer,“ Lovell said. :I’d like to see some sort of zero tolerance or fair arbitration and taking reports more seriously."

The most effective improvements in safety, Lovell said, happen when there is clear accountability and victims are involved in the process. 

Lyft said in its blog post that anyone who violates the company's guidelines will be removed from the app or required to take additional training. But it did not detail how it will investigate reports of sexual violence or work with riders who report abuse.

“You don’t just want them to be like, ‘We’ll take care of this,’ and no one hears or knows about it," Lovell said. "Then it doesn’t prevent that behavior from happening for future victims."

Two key improvements attorneys and survivors have advocated were not addressed in Lyft’s announcement: in-car recordings and better driver background checks.

Lovell said early research on body cameras worn by law enforcement officers suggest that in-car cameras would be an effective tool to combat sexual assault and harassment –– by drivers and riders. 

Alexander said Lyft screens drivers for criminal offenses including violent crimes and sexual offenses. Screens are conducted daily and annually, according to Tuesday's blog post, and any driver who does not pass is barred from the platform.

But Lyft does not rely on fingerprint background checks, long used by bus and taxi companies and considered a gold-standard by law enforcement.  

Tricia Nadolny contributed to this report. 

Cara Kelly is a reporter on the USA TODAY investigations team, focusing primarily on pop culture, consumer news and sexual violence. Contact her at carakelly@usatoday.com or @carareports.