Uber has been finding itself in some hot water recently, and with a Boston Uber driver arrested for rape – things are not getting any better.
The surge pricing during the Sydney siege, which was later rectified with free rides, could be put down to growing pains as few companies plan out how they will change their business in the event of hostage taking or terrorist situations as they are thankfully very rare.
However, in the wake of a scandal in new Delhi where an Uber driver has been arrested for raping a passenger, Uber did not make any changes to its policies and now one if its drivers in Boston has been arrested for the same crime.
Bloomberg reports that Alejandro Done, 46, picked up a young woman from a Boston residence on 6 December for a ride pre-arranged through Uber, but rather than taking her to her destination the driver allegedly drove her to a secluded area and raped her.
Both of these cases highlight the need for Uber to focus a little less on squeezing the most money out of the taxi transaction and invest some of their profits into background checks.
While it’s good that Uber have cooperating and assisting police in their investigation, Uber was recently valued at $40 billion and it is about time they invested some of that into customer safety to prevent anything like this happening again.
From a blog post yesterday it appears that Uber is making some strides in the right direction, but these should have been steps implemented when they launched in a new territory, not months or years down the line.