Rideshare Assault Prevention: The Small Habits That Help You Stay Safer in Rideshares

TL;DR:

Staying safer in a rideshare is mostly about a few simple habits. Make sure your driver is the right person. Tell someone you trust about your trip. If you get a bad feeling, pay attention to it right away. Studies say these habits help, but nothing is perfect. If you did all the right things and something still happened, it’s not your fault. You can still get help.

You look at the license plate, then look again to be sure. You check the driver’s face and name, just like your app shows. You message a friend to say where you’re going before you open the door. And then you get into your ride.

Rideshare assault prevention isn’t about living in fear every time you call a ride. What matters is knowing what actually helps and what just makes you feel safe, but doesn’t really protect you. Uber and Lyft give billions of rides every year. Most rides are just rides. They end with you getting to your stop. But there are still thousands of stories where something went wrong. Even new safety features haven’t made that number go away.

Shixingyue Hu and Yazao Yang, who study safety at Chongqing Jiaotong University, wanted to see which habits make people act safer, not just feel safer.

In 2024, the researchers looked at almost 7,900 crime case files and answers from about 600 women who used rideshare apps a lot. They didn’t just ask if these women felt safe. They made a point system based on what passengers do. Watching your route live on your phone gets a lot of points. Making sure the driver had a clean record counted too. But the top habit was simple: keep your phone charged and easy to grab. Going with a friend also helped a lot. People who rode with someone else felt much safer than people who rode alone.

So here’s the bottom line: Rideshare assault prevention habits are easy, and you can use them every single ride.

Three criminologists from the University of Melbourne talked with rideshare and taxi passengers to learn what made them feel uneasy. Their study was published in the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy.

They wanted to know what happens right before things take a bad turn. They kept hearing the same thing again and again. Many riders said they started to feel nervous before anything bad even happened. Some drivers would ask questions like, “Is someone waiting for you at home?” Or they’d make a strange comment about how someone looked. Sometimes, the driver would take a route that didn’t match the map, for no valid reason. The researchers pointed out that questions about who’s waiting for you are often just to find out if anyone would notice you’re gone.

Listen to your gut. Warning signs during Uber rides are almost never loud or obvious. It usually starts as a tiny feeling that something isn’t right. That feeling means you should pay attention right away. You don’t have to chat or be friendly to stay safe. You paid for the ride, not for their company.

The best time to stay safe is before your ride even shows up. Look at the license plate and make sure it matches what’s on your phone. Check if the car’s color and type are right, too. Does the driver’s face match the photo in your app? Take a second and check. Please don’t hesitate to check. If something feels wrong, don’t get in. Just cancel and wait for another car.

In 2024, the U.S. Government Accountability Office looked into assault numbers from rideshares and taxis all across the country. Their report stated that we still don’t know how often these things happen. Companies only share some of the numbers. The report said the whole industry needs better ways to keep track.

This missing information actually matters for your safety, because the companies are in charge of what gets out. Those safety scores in the app don’t tell the whole story. Tell someone you trust about your ride every single time, not just when you feel nervous. Make sharing your ride a habit, not something you do only once in a while.

When it comes to staying safe, Lyft has its own set of tools and habits that really work. Here’s what actually helps when you ride:

• Try out Lyft’s emergency button in the app before you ever need it. If you press it, it can call 911 and share your location right away in many cities.
• Always sit in the back seat if you’re riding alone. It gives you more space and lets you react faster if something feels off.
• Make sure your phone is fully charged before your ride even begins.
• If a driver asks you to cancel in the app and pay cash, say no. That move takes away all the safety features that come with the app.

Simple habits like these can make a big difference when you’re on the road with Lyft.

If you get a weird feeling, trust it. Don’t wait around to find out why.

• Ask your driver to stop somewhere safe and easy to see, like a busy street or a gas station.
• Call someone and stay on the line until you’ve left the car.
• Use the emergency button in your ride app as soon as you feel you need to.
• After the ride, report what happened in the app, even if it seems small.

Every small report matters. These reports help the company spot a bad driver before someone else gets hurt.

A lot of the time, people talk like it’s all up to the rider to stop sexual assault in Uber. Check this, check that, sit here, not there. But that idea leaves out something big.

Every habit you’ve read about here can help lower risk. But none of them makes the danger disappear. And none of these tips mean it’s your fault if you do everything right and something bad still happens.

It’s the rideshare company that chooses who can drive and how quickly they deal with complaints. If those systems fail, the blame is on the company, not on you for trusting your ride home.

At Blair & Ramirez LLP, we see how often that trust gets broken, even when passengers do everything right. Our team looks into whether the rideshare company missed warning signs about a driver before something happened. Sadly, we see that pattern a lot more than most people think.

Sometimes reading all these tips can feel like a lot, especially if you’re already dealing with something tough.

Maybe you have questions, or you feel upset, or you’re holding onto something you haven’t shared with anyone yet. You don’t have to carry all of that by yourself.

We’re here to listen to your situation and answer all your questions when you reach out.

Get a free case review.

• Always check that the license plate and driver’s face match what you see in your app.
• Let someone you trust know about your ride, even if it’s your tenth ride of the day.
• If you feel unsure for even a second, trust that feeling. If something seems off, ask to stop somewhere safe where there are people around.
• Report anything that made you feel uncomfortable in your ride, even if it seems small.
• If something bad happened anyway, it’s not your fault. You have legal options.