Uber’s safety fix, with a big asterisk

TL;DR: Uber just took its "Women Drivers" feature nationwide, letting female riders choose to be matched with women behind the wheel. The option tries to address a real problem—thousands of sexual assault lawsuits have been filed against rideshare companies in the past decade—but only 1 in 5 Uber drivers are women (whereas they make up around half of riders), and class action discrimination suits are already trying to kill such features.

What happened: After pilots in more than two dozen cities, Uber's "Women Drivers" option is now rolling out across the country. Female riders can request a woman driver on demand, reserve one in advance, or set it as a default. Female drivers can do the same for riders. It increases the likelihood of being matched with a woman, but doesn’t guarantee it. Nonbinary people are excluded from using the feature, and Uber says it will try to determine rider gender based on their first name, so good luck if your name is Jordan or Taylor.

This feature comes as Uber fights more than 3,700 federal plaintiffs alleging it failed to prevent driver-on-passenger sexual assaults. Women, both riders and drivers, are most often the victims, with Uber’s most recent safety report saying they make up 89% of reported rape cases. Last month, a jury in Arizona awarded a passenger $8.5 million after finding Uber liable for a driver's assault of a 19-year-old passenger—a ride that the app’s own algorithm had flagged as “higher risk.” In a separate California case last fall, a jury found Uber negligent in its safety protocols but ruled that it wasn’t a substantial factor in the assault. Lyft launched a similar "Women+ Connect" option nationwide in 2024, but hasn’t revealed much about how it’s performing.

The math problem: The big challenge for rideshare companies launching women-preferred features is that a minority of drivers are female. They make up about a fifth of US Uber drivers. (In New York, 94% of ride-hail drivers are male.) Uber insists wait times for women-only rides "aren't very different from UberX, especially in urban areas.” The company's own support page advises riders who face longer waits to "choose a ride with any available driver that may not match their preference," which is corporate for "you can always go back to riding with a man."

The pushback: The dearth of women working for rideshare apps isn’t the only looming issue. Both Uber and Lyft have been hit with class action lawsuits in California alleging the women-matching programs violate state discrimination laws by cutting men out of half the rider pool. The suits seek $4,000 per affected male driver—which would add up fast if applied to the hundreds of thousands of men driving in the Golden State. These cases could also determine whether identity-based driver segmentation survives long term.

What comes next: The next bellwether assault trial, centered on a North Carolina woman who alleges she was assaulted by her Uber driver in 2019, is set for April. Another loss for Uber would ratchet up the pressure to settle thousands of remaining cases—and turn up the heat for the company to prove it’s doing something meaningful about safety.

The bottom line: Whether such features prove to be a real safety measure or a PR-friendly bandaid depends on a variable Uber can't easily change: convincing more women to work for a platform currently defending itself against thousands of assault claims, including from drivers. —WK