Uber has published three safety reports covering 2017 through 2022. Together they count 12,522 sexual assaults reported on its platform, 1,207 of them rapes. Lyft's first report, covering 2017 through 2019, counted 4,158 sexual assaults, including 360 rapes. These are the companies' own numbers, and they only include what riders found a way to report. Uber's data also shows who was accused: in its most recent report, the driver was the accused party in 68% of sexual assault reports — and in 90% of the rapes, where nearly nine in ten survivors were women. The setup behind those numbers is the one the apps are built on: a passenger alone in a stranger's car, often at night, sometimes after drinking, with the driver controlling the doors, the route, and where the ride ends. Survivors have described drivers who took them somewhere other than the address they entered, who locked the doors, who groped or exposed themselves, and who raped them — and, again and again, drivers who had already been reported before.
Thousands of riders have now sued. The federal cases are grouped together in one California court — the Uber cases since 2023, the Lyft cases since early 2026 (MDL 3084 and MDL 3171) — with more moving through California state court, and the first trials began in 2026. The lawsuits do not describe a few bad drivers. They say the companies checked drivers against name-based records instead of fingerprints and cleared people who should never have been approved; did little to monitor what happened once a ride was under way; kept drivers on the road after being told about them; never warned riders; and advertised a level of safety they were not delivering. You do not need the driver to have been arrested or convicted to bring a claim.
If an Uber or Lyft driver sexually assaulted, abused, or harassed you during or after a ride, you may be able to bring a claim against the company that put that driver on the road — not only against the driver.
