San Francisco (AFP)

After years of refusing to quantify the problem, Uber has reported nearly 6,000 sexual assaults in the United States in two years, while chauffeur-driven reservation services are widely blamed for inefficiency and ill-will in the United States. field.

The industry giant released Thursday a detailed report on security, which reveals that 5,981 sexual assaults were reported by users or drivers of its service, as well as third parties, in the US in 2017 and 2018. This figure includes touching, attempts at aggression and rape. The same report counts 19 homicides over the same period.

"These incidents were reported on 0.00002% of the races, and although rare, these reports all represent an individual who shared a very painful experience - even a single report would be too much reporting," says Uber.

"This year, there have been nearly four million trips every day to Uber in the United States," says Tony West, the group's legal director. "The platform reflects the world in which we operate, with its good and bad aspects".

This report, the first of its kind, seeks to put incidents into perspective - by mentioning the importance of the risks of sexual violence - and highlights the efforts made to combat these threats.

Not sure that this is enough to reassure users, who often call a car precisely to move safely.

In France, the testimonies of women assaulted during trips in VTC have multiplied in recent days on social networks, under the banner "#UberCestOver" (Uber is over).

- We'll refund the race -

The storm does not spare Lyft, the rival of Uber in the United States, who had yet sought to position itself as a more responsible actor.

Since September, 34 women have lodged a complaint in San Francisco against Lyft for sexual assaults in driver vehicles affiliated with the California company.

Caroline Miller, one of the complainants, fell asleep in the back of a car after celebrating her birthday. "When I woke up, he was raping me," the young woman told a news conference on Wednesday.

The driver in question was arrested, but Lyft "did not apologize to me, they did not call or write me," she said. "They just offered to pay him back," said Michael Bomberger, the 34-woman lawyer.

Lyft had capitalized in 2017 on the #DeleteUber campaign, led by consumers who wanted to encourage the removal of the application, after revelations about the sexist and violent corporate culture that prevailed at the leader of the VTC.

Since this dark year, and after several reported cases of sexual violence, Uber has broken with the strategy of choking business.

In May 2018, the company stopped obliging its customers, employees or drivers who were victims of harassment or sexual assault to go through a mediation procedure, much more discreet than a legal proceeding.

- "Just marketing" -

In terms of security, Uber, like Lyft, has made identity theft more difficult by drivers, tightened controls to detect criminals already convicted, and added a button in their applications to report a problem during the journey.

"This button is a joke," Michael Bomberger reacts to AFP. "Who can use his smartphone during an assault? It's just marketing."

In case of report, "they should be banned from the platform.This seems obvious and yet it is not the case," continues the lawyer, who advocates the systematic registration of races for drivers to feel monitored, a better cooperation with the authorities and more thorough checks of drivers' past.

"Lyft does not take the safety of its passengers seriously. (...) The platform is tailor-made for sexual predators," he said during the press conference.

"We know that their measures do not work, because eight of the attacks we are talking about today took place after they were put in place," he said.

"No one should have to go through what these women describe," a spokeswoman for Lyft said on Wednesday. "Women face disproportionate risks, and we know that, and that's why we work tirelessly to make security part of everything we do."

© 2019 AFP