Students deserve to know more about potential threats to ride-share safety

Your Lyft might be arriving in five minutes, but students might have to wait longer for safety reforms on ride-share apps.

This October, UCLA and Lyft announced a partnership that would provide students a flat-fare fee for the second year in a row. And while affordable transportation is surely necessary for students, it may also be putting them at risk.

Predators across the country have been reported to trick ride-share users into their cars. Tactics have included waiting outside of popular bars with the sole purpose of preying on users, trying to convince people they are their ride-shares in an attempt to get people into their cars and even placing Uber logos on their dashboards.

And tricking users, especially those who are distracted or drunk, seems to be working.

Despite this, ride-sharing apps have done a poor job of informing their users of the risks. And considering that a large student population is dependent on these services, UCLA should demand reform from its ride-sharing partner and other companies that potentially threaten students’ safety. This should include pressuring ride-share companies to adapt their apps to directly inform users and conduct transparent reporting, which would bolster collective data between Lyft and UCPD.

Ride-share incidents are not as uncommon as one may think for users and are a threat especially close to the college experience.

It was only this year when 21-year-old Samantha Josephson called her Uber after a night out and mistakenly entered the wrong car, leading to her brutal murder in South Carolina.

UCPD Lt. Kevin Kilgore has acknowledged fake drivers as a potential issue for students and suggested safety tips for those going out.

“Always designating someone as the sober person who will be able to assist those who have been drinking, even if no one is driving,” Kilgore said. “Whenever people are going to go out to participate in that activity, it’s always good to make sure you are with people who can help you make good decisions.”

One way UCLA has tried to mitigate the risks is through a collaboration between UCPD and UCLA Transportation that created an online ride-sharing safety brochure. It addresses ways in which students can keep themselves safe by using tips like checking the make or model of the car, the license and the safety locks.

These tips can be effective, but it’s an online brochure hidden among other online brochures. And while it might be a good start, it doesn’t mean these tips are bulletproof.

Sierra Reynolds, a fourth-year psychology student, said her and five of her friends were leaving a bar in Downtown LA early one morning when they got into their Uber to head back to Westwood. It wasn’t until after checking the model of the car, its license plate number and driving off that they realized their driver was not the correct person.

“He said it was his brother’s account that he just happens to use because it was easier for login purposes,” Reynolds said. “He said he could take us with him to Las Vegas … and he was making creepy comments.”

Plenty of students in LA don’t have cars, thus depending on public transportation or ride-sharing services to get around. And with Los Angeles’ active nightlife and large student bodies at UCLA and USC, that reliance won’t go away anytime soon.

The reality is students and young individuals, especially those under the influence, are less likely to follow tips from a subsection of UCPD’s website that requires active searching to find.

UCLA and the University of California have the responsibility and the opportunity to pressure ride-share giants into providing better safety measures. In an economy like California in which these companies are thriving, an institution as large as the UC – with a direct link to these companies and their user bases – has a unique ability to influence them.

The UC has economic weight in California, and it should use it to protect students.

And while Uber might be more popular, UCLA opted for a deal with Lyft, a competitor facing the same problems.

Lyft was not able to directly respond to comment on safety concerns.

The partnership with Lyft might just be business for UCLA, but student safety is priceless. Given that, UCLA should demand more accountability from its partner on behalf of its students, a vulnerable population.

This is not to say that ride-share companies haven’t tried to establish safety measures. Uber has made a lot of changes to its platform, which included creating a national initiative to promote public awareness of fake Ubers. Lyft has recently implemented continuous background checks on drivers. But awareness is meaningless if the facts aren’t made transparent.

Uber promised to upload a safety transparency report in 2018 that would disclose incidences that occurred on the platform. That was a year and a half ago – nothing since.

When asked when the report would be published, Navideh Forghani, a senior communications associate for Uber, said in an email statement that the company was still gathering data.

“Uber is committed on releasing the Safety Report and we are currently working on compiling the numbers,” Forghani said.

Uber’s and Lyft’s only solutions for ride-share safety depend on user awareness, and their lack of transparency on ride-sharing incidents continue to leave users – and more specifically, students – in the dark. A potential solution could be as simple as adding a notification in the app when selecting a ride to inform users in the area where fake drivers have been reported.

The two most popular platforms for ride-sharing have yet to provide substantive policies on their end that can actively prevent these situations from happening.

Because without precautions in place, students might never make it home.