Ride Sharers’ Accountability for their Own Safety

As ride shares continue to grow in popularity and ease, it's very important that riders know how to stay safe when they ride in a strange vehicle. The recent safety and security steps being taken by Uber and Lyft will move the industry in the right direction.

Recently, Lyft announced that all its drivers must pass a criminal background check before being hired and requires that all active drivers pass another background check at least every twelve months in order to remain on their platform. Lyft’s background security check will include a social security number trace, a nationwide criminal search, a county court records search, a federal criminal search, as well as a U.S. Department of Justice 50-state sex offender registry search. 

Utilizing the legal requirements, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to ensure that the rights of the driver are protected, ride share companies should all have written permission from candidates to screen their backgrounds, as a part of the employment process. Once a consumer opts to hire a ride share company’s service, the consent given to company should pass through to the rider and, as such, the rider should be given to opportunity to conduct a quick limited scope criminal background check of the driver to determine his/her safety. 

The more information that Lyft and Uber can give to customers, the better and safer that consume will feel. Thus, the suggestion for an enhanced continuous background check that will allow the rider to be more accountable for his/her safety while using a ride share. 

 As a former law enforcement professional, before every assignment, although I trusted my partners and agency, I always made sure that when it came to my safety, I was accountable to myself. As such, I would always check, recheck and verify every detail of my pre-operational planning. Threat and protective intelligence were always performed regardless of the details or mission. 

To enhance riders’ safety, ride share companies should consider having riders be more engaged and accountable. Once Uber or Lyft confirms the ride, riders are provided with the name, picture, contact information of the driver and the car information. As an added security and safety measure for possible consideration, the ride share companies should provide an additional option within the ride share application platform where the rider will be informed as to when the driver’s background check was last conducted, and if the rider so elects, he/she rider can conduct, possibly for an additional fee, an instant verification of the driver’s driving records, criminal and other public records.  

This added service will enable riders to know who they are doing business with while exercising due diligence to prevent unnecessary safety and security risks. With that information, the rider can decide if he or she wants to ride with that person, cancel the ride, or confirm the ride. Again, putting the rider in control of his/her safety. 

According to Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer, Uber has created a new alert app system. Once a rider orders a ride from Uber, and when that ride has been dispatched, the rider will receive a more persistent, more frequent notifications, push notifications, to his/her phone that reminds the rider to check his/her ride. The option to conduct instant background check should be a concept that is considered in the new Uber security app. 

 There is a high demand for the services of a background check which will help keep riders and the ride share business safe. The lack of background checks can lead to horrific crimes where riders are physically assaulted, raped, and murdered.

Ride share companies are also technology companies. In today’s world, conducting background checks has mostly become a technology data verification process. Thus, in order to reduce costs, ride share companies should consider being registered as consumer reporting agencies (CRA) and they should hire and train FCRA Certified Screeners within their security department to oversee the reports and ensure that they can quickly catch databases errors, omissions, false-positives and misinformation. 

Lastly, when the rider opts to do a quick background check on a driver, that rider has just enabled the company to verify its driver at a cost to the rider prior to the annual check conducted by the company. This continuous unpredictable screening process, by its very nature, should help detect, deter and possibly defeat ride share crimes and incidents. 

As noted, this is a conceptual idea and further research will be required to determine if this concept is feasible.