Chicago Workers’ Compensation Lawyers & Illinois Injury Lawyers

A Recent Report Reveals 3,000 Sexual Assaults on Uber Rides in One Year Alone

| Dec 16, 2019 | Uber/Lyft |

If you’ve been checking the news headlines – or this blog – regularly over the last several months, you know that one of the issues facing rideshare service users (and some drivers) is sexual assault. Recently, a report released by Uber provided a shocking image of just how prevalent this problem is. That report indicated that, just in 2018, more than three thousand Uber riders and drivers were sexually assaulted, according to ABC News.

In politics, a politician’s level of blame for a scandal may be measured by answering the questions “what did he know and when did he know it.” Sometimes, a civil lawsuit against an entity may also be greatly strengthened by providing proof of what the entity knew (or reasonably should have known) and when it knew it. While these pieces are important, they aren’t everything. To be sure your case has everything it needs for success, be sure to obtain skillful representation from an experienced Chicago Uber injury attorney.

That Uber report also indicated that 464 people were raped using Uber in 2017 and 2018, with roughly 425 of those 464 being passengers. Stock market analysts declared the shocking report to be “another black eye for Uber as the company continues have business model issues which need to addressed,” according to a Mercury News report.

More serious than Uber’s bottom line, though, are the injuries suffered by those harmed riders and drivers. So, who bears the legal burden of compensating those harmed for the injuries they suffered? Obviously, the attacker has legal liability. However, obtaining a full and fair recovery for the extensive harm you suffered often means doing more than just suing some lone sexual predator who probably has little to no assets.

In many situations, the facts may indicate that the rideshare service itself was at least partially to blame. In order to win a negligence case against your rideshare service, you do not have to prove that the service meant for you to suffer harm. In Illinois, a successful case only requires proving that the entity you’ve sued owed you some sort of obligation, that it failed to live up to that obligation, that its failure caused your injuries and that your injuries caused you to suffer tangible harm.

The statistics in the Uber report clearly indicate that there was a safety issue with Uber rides. As noted above, a key form of evidence can be identifying what the rideshare service knew or should have known, and when it knew it (or when should it have figured it out.) If you were harmed because your rideshare service hired (or continued to use) a driver that it knew or should have known was unsafe, using him because it had a business model prioritizing profit over safety, then you could be entitled to significant compensation based upon the service’s negligence in hiring or negligence in continuing to use that unsafe driver.

Rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft, by choosing to open a business in which they offer a service providing rides to the public, take on the obligation make sure that the service they offer is a safe one. If you were hurt on a Uber or Lyft ride, your service may have failed to live up to that obligation. Check with the knowledgeable Chicago Uber injury attorneys at Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca about your options and how we can help you achieve a beneficial outcome. To set up a free case evaluation, contact us at 312-724-5846 or through our website.

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