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An Egyptian girl named Habiba Al-Shamaa sparked controversy on social media after she threw herself from an Uber car for fear of being assaulted by the driver, which led to her suffering fractures and a cerebral hemorrhage that put her into a coma.

Uber is considered relatively safe, given the passenger's ability to know the driver's name and car number, not to mention the ability to track the trip's route directly, which has made it operate in 10,000 cities in 72 countries, with 23 million trips per day.

But the Egyptian girl, who was riding in an Uber car from “Madinaty” east of the capital, Cairo, on her way to the Fifth Settlement, threw herself from the car after she sensed danger in the driver’s behavior.

Until now, the story has not been known from the girl herself because she fell into a coma due to a cerebral hemorrhage as a result of her jumping out of the car on the Cairo-Suez road, which was confirmed by eyewitnesses.

One of the eyewitnesses said that he saw her jumping out of the back door of the car, and that he stopped to help her, so she informed him that “the driver tried to fight her and she jumped out of fear that he would harass her.”

As for Dina Omar, the girl’s mother, she said that her daughter communicated with her on the phone during the trip, but she was unable to hear her complaint because of the sound of the songs that was inside the car.

According to Egyptian media, a spokesman for Uber expressed deep sadness over this incident, and said that the company is cooperating with the investigation authorities in order to take the necessary measures, stressing that the accident team is in contact with the girl’s family, which her mother denied.

As is usual, social networking sites began a debate about the story, on which many expressed differing opinions.

For example, “Lola” praised the girl’s courage by saying: “The Egyptian girl, the daughter of Al-Rajala, first feared for her honor, she threw herself under the car’s wheel... she didn’t care (she didn’t care),” while Hisham questioned the girl’s story by saying: “Eh (what)?” Who proves that she was going to be kidnapped? Everyone is sitting and issuing judgments without investigating the circumstances and hearing both sides, and then Uber’s itinerary is recorded and monitored.”

However, this was not a general opinion. Tamer, for example, emphasized the company’s responsibility for what happened by saying: “Uber should be held accountable, because if it had been in its home country, it would have been closed, because it has become a back door for some registered dangers and habitual criminals.”

Likewise, Amr said: “The government must review the licenses of smart software drivers, not private companies alone... because this is why the captain transferred himself from the staff to a taxi, dealing with the public.”

On the other hand, Abu Malik, one of the Uber drivers, responded by saying: “I am an Uber captain (driver) and have been there (for) 7 years. I have never seen a situation like this. Then if someone is a monster, can they eat like this?”

But it seems that the company is not so innocent, as the Egyptian Ministry of Interior confirmed - in a statement - that the accused driver has a criminal record, and said that the Public Prosecution decided to detain him for 4 days pending investigations.

As for the driver himself, he told the police that he closed the car's windows and sprayed perfume because of a bad smell, but he was surprised by the girl jumping out of the car, so he continued driving for fear of what had happened.

Source: Al Jazeera