In an effort to make rides safer, Lyft launches Ladies+ Join: NPR
Lyft introduced that it’s rolling out a brand new security function in San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Phoenix and Chicago.
David Zalubowski/AP
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David Zalubowski/AP
Lyft introduced that it’s rolling out a brand new security function in San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Phoenix and Chicago.
David Zalubowski/AP
Some Lyft girls and non-binary drivers can now match with girls and non-binary passengers, utilizing a brand new function the ride-sharing service launched earlier this week.
The in-app possibility, referred to as Ladies+ Join, has been added to Lyft providers in a transfer to enhance security after a raft of lawsuits in recent times accused the corporate of failing to guard passengers and drivers.
It is also designed to extend the variety of girls and non-binary drivers working for the San Francisco-based firm. They at present make up simply 23% of drivers on the platform, in keeping with Lyft.
“This much-requested function gives extra management over the driving expertise for ladies and non-binary folks, permitting them to really feel extra assured. With fewer obstacles to driving, extra girls can entry versatile incomes alternatives,” Lyft mentioned in a press release. statement.
Drivers can select to activate choice within the Lyft app to prioritize matches with different girls and non-binary passengers. It is the identical subscription sort of deal for passengers. However it’s not a assure. If there aren’t any riders or drivers matching the outline close by, they are going to stay paired with males.
The added service is just being rolled out in San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Phoenix and Chicago.
Lyft and its foremost competitor, Uber, have come below growing scrutiny over questions of safety, particularly sexual assault, since their launch greater than a decade in the past.
Final September, Lyft was hit with 17 lawsuits filed by customers, alleging that the corporate failed to guard passengers and drivers from bodily and sexual assault. In 2019, it confronted one other related wave of lawsuits from feminine drivers who accused the corporate of realizing about alleged assaults by predatory drivers for years however doing nothing to deal with the issue.
It was this sequence of authorized filings that prompted Lyft to do that Announce additional safety measurestogether with an emergency name button on its app, new driver coaching and “sensible flight check-in” that goals to sense when a flight has “unexplained delays” and points a notification to the passenger.
In the meantime, in June 2022, Lyft reached a $25 million settlement to resolve a shareholder class motion lawsuit that alleged the corporate hid questions of safety, together with sexual assaults by drivers, forward of its 2019 preliminary public providing.
Lyft didn’t reply to NPR’s request for remark or up to date information on driver and consumer security.
a Community Safety Report 2021 The corporate revealed that greater than 4,000 folks have been assaulted throughout Lyft rides from 2017 to 2019. Of these circumstances, 320 have been “tried sexual penetration with out consent” and 360 have been assaults involving “sexual penetration with out consent.” consent”.
The report included 10 deadly assaults from 2017 to 2019, “involving a person utilizing the Lyft platform.”
On the time, the corporate mentioned that whereas the numbers have been grim, they have been statistically insignificant given the hundreds of thousands of rides supplied every year.
Newest analysis Uber confirmed that the corporate obtained 3,824 stories of sexual assault and misconduct from 2019 to 2020. Based on Uber, passengers have been the accused social gathering in 43% of the incidents.
Jay Brown, chief of workers of the Human Rights Marketing campaign, described the brand new function as an inclusive product that comes “at a time when many corporations are avoiding express inclusion of trans and non-binary folks.”
“When ridesharing is best for these folks, it is higher for everybody, and we at HRC help that,” Brown added.
