SAN FRANCISCO — Lyft recorded 4,158 alleged sexual assaults on its platform between 2017 and 2019, according to the San Francisco-based ride-sharing, vehicle rental and delivery company’s first Community Safety Report.
The report, released Thursday, confirmed patrons reported 1,096 sexual assaults in 2017, a figure that increased nearly 15% in 2018 to 1,255 and another 44% to 1,807 in 2019. The spike between 2017 and 2019 represents a roughly 65% increase.
Lyft also noted in its report that the reported sexual assaults represent only about 0.0002% of all rides supported by its platform during the three-year time frame, USA Today reported.
“While safety incidents on our platform are incredibly rare, we realize that even one is too many,” Jennifer Brandenburger, Lyft’s head of policy development and research, wrote in a Thursday blog post.
“Behind every report is a real person and real experience, and our goal is to make each Lyft ride as safe as we possibly can,” she added.
Lyft also reported 10 fatal physical assaults and 105 motor vehicle crash deaths during the same three-year span, CBS News reported.
According to the network, the three-year total included more than 360 rapes, and the highest number of assaults were classified as “non-consensual touching of a sexual body part,” of which there were 598 reported in 2017, followed by 661 in 2018 and 1,041 in 2019.
The company stated in the report that it does not report alleged sexual assaults to law enforcement, leaving that responsibility to alleged victims who levy the accusations; however, Lyft does provide support services such as “counseling, emotional support and crisis intervention,” USA Today reported.
“Generally speaking, individuals who are accused of committing the types of incidents detailed in this report will be permanently removed from the Lyft community, preventing them from riding or driving in the future,” the company wrote in its report.
Lyft’s disclosure comes nearly two years after the company initially pledged to release the data in 2019, the same year competitor Uber’s own safety report revealed that more than 3,000 sexual assaults had been reported by U.S. riders who used its platform in 2018, USA Today reported.
That figure nearly doubled to 5,981 when data from both 2017 and 2018 were included, CBS News reported.
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