August 8, 2025
Uber’s sexual assault victims, both drivers or passengers, are women, and the vast majority of attackers are men.
Investigative reporter Emily Steel is blowing the lid off of Uber’s staggering number of unreported accounts of sexual misconduct after it was revealed the rideshare company received a report of sexual assault or misconduct in the U.S. close to an average of every eight minutes between 2017 and 2022, the New York Times reports.
For years, Uber has publicly labeled itself as one of the safest commuter travel options, but privately, with sealed court documents, a different story was painted. Over 400,000, a total of 400,181, Uber trips ended with reports of sexual assault and sexual misconduct in the U.S., while the company’s reports once disclosed only 12,522 reports of serious sexual assaults during the same timespan.
Steel’s shocking report was supported by a tragic tale of a woman in Houston, posted on Instagram, who was failed by the rideshare company after what was supposed to be a 22-minute trip turned into a five-hour nightmare. The unidentified woman called Uber to report that the driver had taken her to a hotel and sexually assaulted her. In December 2023, she was picked up roughly before 9 p.m. with two unidentified stops.
Uber noticed and sent an automated notification to make sure she was OK, but she never responded. The ride eventually ended near a Motel 6, around 2 a.m., when the company sent another notification that the woman never responded again.
The company has failed to release reports outside of the 2017-2022 time period, despite the number of incidents having increased. Uber has since released a statement on having a no-tolerance policy toward such claims. “There is no ‘tolerable’ level of sexual assault,” Uber’s head of safety for the Americas, Hannah Nilles, said in a statement.
According to About Lawsuits, Uber’s sexual assault victims, both drivers and passengers, are women, and the vast majority of attackers are men. In addition, most attacks take place late at night, often happening in close proximity to bars and involving intoxicated passengers.
Niles did confirm that 75% of the massive number of reports were of “less serious” offenses such as unwanted comments about a rider’s appearance, flirting, or use of explicit language. The popular rideshare company even attempted to address the issue by testing options, such as placing cameras in cars, but no action has been taken. However, Uber put a tool called Safety Risk Assessed Dispatch in place with attempts to predict which driver-rider pairings could result in a risk of sexual assault.
Even the company has admitted that the platform is not doing much.
Unwanted advances — regardless of how serious or minor they may be deemed — have resulted in a number of lawsuits against the company, some at the state level and others at the federal level. In May 2025, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer from the Northern District of California selected six Uber driver sex assault lawsuits that will serve as the first cases of bellwether trials, designed to help predict just how juries may respond to evidence and testimony that may be repeated throughout the trial.
With the first bellwether trial scheduled for Dec. 8, 2025, decisions will be closely watched as lawsuit payouts, on average, awarded by juries could potentially have an impact on future Uber sexual assault settlement negotiations.
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