Uber London Limited.
An Uber driver allegedly left a young woman by the side of a motorway in east London following a dispute over the journey.
The 20-year-old woman told Vice UK she was forced to call for assistance from the Met after being left stranded on the A12 close to Leyton in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The woman, whose name was given only as Caitlin, said she was on the way to watch her brother perform a DJ set but once she was in the cab she was told to not bother coming as it was too late.
She asked the cab driver to take her back home or to the next exit so she could catch a bus home, but the driver instead asked her to cancel the trip on the app and input a new destination.
Caitlin told Vice: “He raised his voice, turned back towards me and waved his finger around, telling me that I'd 'closed his line' and he wasn't going to get paid for this.”
The driver then allegedly dropped her off by an SOS phone under a bridge on the A12 close to Stratford and told her to call for help from there.
She said after calling the SOS phone two police drivers came to rescue her and drove her to a minicab office in Leyton.
A spokesman for the Met said: “Police were called at 3.22am to Leyton. Officers located the subject and assisted in the journey home.”
An Uber spokesman told Vice: "The safety of our customers is Uber's top priority. We are always sorry to hear of any customer's bad experience and we reached out promptly to deal with this complaint.”
Meanwhile in Boston: Uber driver charged with assault
An Uber driver was charged with indecent assault and battery against a passenger on Sunday morning, police said, an incident that comes amid an intensifying debate over how to regulate the popular ridehailing service and after several similar assault allegations.
According to an Uber spokeswoman, the driver recently passed a background check and the company is cooperating with the investigation being conducted by the Boston Police Sexual Assault Unit.
“The driver in question has been removed from the platform pending the ongoing investigation,” said Kaitlin Durkosh, an Uber spokeswoman.
A 30-year-old Boston woman told police that she and three friends had summoned an Uber ride. After her friends were dropped off, the woman remained in the car to go to a separate location and during that time, the driver touched her indecently several times, according to police.
The woman left the car and was helped by another person, who called police.
The driver, Abderrahim Dakiri, 36, of Boston was arrested at about 3:25 a.m. Sunday in the North End and charged in the assault, Boston police said in a statement. Dakiri remains in police custody, according to the department.
The arrest follows a string of attacks late last year on women who had hailed rides using ride-hailing services.
In December, Alejandro Done, 46, of Boston, who worked as an Uber driver, was charged with raping and kidnapping a woman, though it is unclear whether he was working as an Uber driver at the time. His case is pending.
In three earlier indecent assaults on Dec. 14 in Boston, it was not known whether the assailants were Uber drivers, though the victims said they had hailed a ride via the Uber smartphone app.
Durkosh said Dakiri drove as part of the UberX service, a lower-cost option in which drivers use their own vehicles. He had previously been affiliated with UberBLACK, a higher-end service. Durkosh said Dakiri passed a background screening as recently as Jan. 13.
The arrest comes as local governments and the administration of Governor Charlie Baker consider how to regulate ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. Baker has said the companies can continue their current practices until lawmakers agree on how to regulate them.
“As announced last week, the administration has begun the process of gathering input from municipalities to draft statewide regulations to enhance the safety of both riders and drivers, including mandatory background checks,” Elizabeth Guyton, the governor’s press secretary, said in a statement Monday
Taxi owners, who must buy medallions that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, have sued the City of Boston for allowing the services to operate without the same regulation that they face. Cab companies have cited the recent assault allegations against Uber drivers in their arguments for more regulation of the ride-hailing companies.
Britni de la Cretaz, a member of Safe Hub Collective, a group whose goal is to make public spaces safer, said the collective reached out to Uber Boston representatives more than a year ago to discuss developing a rider-safety training session for their drivers, but a partnership was never formed.
“The onus needs to be on Uber to ensure as safe an experience as possible for their passengers,” said de la Cretaz.
