# Female Uber driver says company did nothing after passengers assaulted her



## TomP (May 3, 2015)

There is an article in the Guardian (published in the UK) about a San Diego driver who says that Uber did nothing after two customers assaulted her. See https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-assault-allegations-female-drivers-san-diego.

Here is a portion of the article:

Driver Becky Graham says two men she picked up in San Diego sexually assaulted her, but filing reports with both Uber and the police have led nowhere









The Uber passenger said he wanted to give a tip. The driver, Becky Graham, had picked up two men at a bar in November of 2015 and was dropping them at a hotel in San Diego when she said one came up by her side - and grabbed her head with his hands.

"He said, 'My tip is the tip of my tongue,'" Graham, 42, recounted in a recent interview, describing how the intoxicated man shoved his tongue in her ear and began licking the side of her face. Behind her, she said, the other man grabbed her and tried pulling her into the back seat.

"They were basically playing tug of war with me," she said, adding that one of them told her: "'You're coming to the hotel with us.'"

She screamed and eventually fought them off, but not before they injured her ribs, neck, shoulder and badly damaged her teeth, Graham said. She later gave a report to an officer at a hospital, hoping police could work with Uber to identify the passenger and file assault charges.

But according to Graham and emails between police and Uber, the company did not disclose the passenger's name to law enforcement, and the criminal investigation went nowhere. The company also provided little support to her as she began the process of recovering from the traumatic incident.

....

Bu according to Graham, a San Diego police detective investigating her case told her that Uber would not disclose the identity of the passenger without a subpoena and that he couldn't get a warrant since there was no evidence beyond her testimony. The detective echoed this account in a recent email to Graham, adding the case was "inactivated" as a result.

An Uber spokesperson told the Guardian that the company did not receive any legal requests from police regarding Graham's case. Uber's law enforcement policies state it requires a subpoena to disclose "basic information".
....
Graham's complaints aren't unique. For years, female Uber drivers have raised concerns about facing mistreatment from passengers, with some claiming that the company allows passengers to harass drivers after a ride has ended.

Veena Dubal, an associate law professor at the University of California, Hastings, argued that the company should be forced to classify its drivers as employees, in which case it would be required to follow higher workplace standards and have systems in place for workers to report this kind of mistreatment.

"In any sort of service industry where you have customers interacting with employees, employers have a duty to make sure that when there are customers who are violent or belligerent or hostile, their employees are protected," she said.

But since Uber maintains that drivers are independent contractors, the company is incentivized not to offer support, she added.

Alexandria Rodriguez, a 27-year-old Uber driver in the Bay Area, said she has twice felt threatened by male passengers, including one intoxicated man who insisted that he navigate and ended up taking her to a secluded area.

She said she has no confidence that Uber takes complaints about dangerous passengers seriously.

"They don't care about what happened," she said. "It's all about, how can we make money?"

Graham said she wished Uber had offered her any kind of support in the form of free counseling or lost wages. She said she struggled to return to driving and that she still suffers lingering traumas today. She has nightmares and flashbacks and sometimes panics or shuts down when she logs in to drive for work.

She said she has also repeatedly been denied jobs in the the service industry, because businesses don't want to hire her due to the gaps in her teeth, which she hasn't been able to fix since the attack.

Graham said that she hopes police and Uber can help her find some sort of closure, but is not sure that will ever happen: "I'm just waiting to move on."


----------



## Ivanz (Mar 26, 2017)

Wait so you can he ****ing assulted and that's not good enough for a warrant to Uber?


----------



## TBone (Jan 19, 2015)

Sadly, this is why weapons are a necessary evil when driving for Uber.


----------



## TomP (May 3, 2015)

I think Uber should do the right things: change its policies so that it will provide the identity of riders to police for investigative purposes when the driver has alleged an assault took place and provide the identity of riders to the driver if the driver wishes to pursue a civil suit.


----------



## Ivanz (Mar 26, 2017)

Except they don't give a **** about you. **** uber


----------



## TomP (May 3, 2015)

Ivanz said:


> Except they don't give a &%[email protected]!* about you. &%[email protected]!* uber


I hope Uber starts to care. The Guardian article went on to discuss some of the bad press Uber has received lately in article after after article in newspapers and websites around the world. The Guardian article goes on to say this:

The allegations from Graham come at a time when the San Francisco company is facing increasing scrutiny over its treatment of drivers and its refusal to classify them as employees or provide traditional benefits and protections. The startup has continued to intensify its anti-union campaigns, and CEO Travis Kalanick was recently caught on tape berating a driver who questioned him about labor practices.

Uber is also reeling from claims that the male-dominated workplace condones sexual harassment and is a hostile environment for female engineers. At the same time, the company has battled scandals surrounding its ethically questionable tactics of evading law enforcement and manipulating drivers to maximize profits.​


----------



## JimKE (Oct 28, 2016)

TomP said:


> I think Uber should do the right things: change its policies so that it will provide the identity of riders to police for investigative purposes when the driver has alleged an assault took place and provide the identity of riders to the driver if the driver wishes to pursue a civil suit.


Uber cannot release that information without a subpoena -- which is _extremely_ easy to get. It requires nothing more than advising the prosecutor's office of the information needed for an ongoing criminal investigation...and done. Zero details of the case have to be divulged -- nor should they be.

If Uber releases info without a subpoena, they are violating their own privacy policies (and possibly CA law) and opening themselves up to civil liability because a detective is too lazy to do his job.

In addition, if Uber did release the info, any evidence developed as a result would be inadmissible because it was illegally obtained. So any case would be lost.

Simple solution. The detective sends a subpoena to Uber; Uber complies. Uber is protected, the detective gets the evidence to proceed with the investigation, and the victim has a chance of filing a civil suit.

Also, just FYI -- The Guardian is a UK scandal-rag, roughly equivalent to the US National Inquirer. You might want to upgrade your sources of "news."


----------



## prsvshine (Mar 2, 2017)

JimKE said:


> Uber cannot release that information without a subpoena -- which is _extremely_ easy to get. It requires nothing more than advising the prosecutor's office of the information needed for an ongoing criminal investigation...and done. Zero details of the case have to be divulged -- nor should they be.
> 
> If Uber releases info without a subpoena, they are violating their own privacy policies (and possibly CA law) and opening themselves up to civil liability because a detective is too lazy to do his job.
> 
> ...


110% Correct


----------



## Jermin8r89 (Mar 10, 2016)

I think its about time everyone stops working. If companies want your bills payed tell them "Im a ****ing humanbeing" This world is in a serious moral deficit


----------



## Chauffeur_James (Dec 12, 2014)

And once again. DASHCAM!!!! Every single driver without one is just rolling the dice


----------



## dirtylee (Sep 2, 2015)

Chauffeur_James said:


> And once again. DASHCAM!!!! Every single driver without one is just rolling the dice


Glocks save lives. 
Dash cam keeps you out of jail.


----------



## Ms Stein Fanboy (Feb 11, 2017)

Ivanz said:


> Wait so you can he &%[email protected]!*ing assulted and that's not good enough for a warrant to Uber?


Uber doesn't issue warrants. Legal authorities do.


----------



## SEAL Team 5 (Dec 19, 2015)

dirtylee said:


> Glocks save lives.


I'm more partial to the Sig.


----------



## Chauffeur_James (Dec 12, 2014)

dirtylee said:


> Glocks save lives.
> Dash cam keeps you out of jail.


Luckily I carry both, but the dashcam would prove the attack especially once you posted it on YouTube and collect a large amount of money from Uber


----------



## TomP (May 3, 2015)

JimKE said:


> Uber cannot release that information without a subpoena -- which is _extremely_ easy to get. It requires nothing more than advising the prosecutor's office of the information needed for an ongoing criminal investigation...and done. Zero details of the case have to be divulged -- nor should they be.
> 
> If Uber releases info without a subpoena, they are violating their own privacy policies (and possibly CA law) and opening themselves up to civil liability because a detective is too lazy to do his job.
> 
> ...


The article says,
She said she was sent into a state of shock and later went to a hospital where the assault was reported to police and a doctor determined that she had suffered a neck strain. She said two front teeth were cracked during the scuffle and later fell out.

....​
But according to Graham, a San Diego police detective investigating her case told her that Uber would not disclose the identity of the passenger without a subpoena and that he couldn't get a warrant since there was no evidence beyond her testimony. The detective echoed this account in a recent email to Graham, adding the case was "inactivated" as a result."​
If a subpoena is so easy to get, Uber should have advised Becky Graham of this. Maybe if Becky had a lawyer, the lawyer could have got the police to issue a subpoena, but possibly she did not have the money to hire a lawyer.

As an option for Becky, she might consider filing a civil suit if she can find a lawyer who would agree to take the case on a contingency basis. That way the lawyer could issue the subpoena to find the identity of the assailants as a third party legal request. I found Uber's policy on this at https://www.uber.com/legal/data-requests/guidelines-for-third-party-data-requests/en/.

JimKE attacked _The Guardian_ as being roughly equivalent to the US National Inquirer. According to Wikipedia, _The Guardian_ has been named Newspaper of the Year four times at the annual British Press Awards, the most recent in 2014 for reporting on government surveillance. Yes, it does report on scandals: In 2016, it led the investigation into the Panama Papers, exposing the then British Prime Minister David Cameron's links to offshore bank accounts. There are scandals worth reporting! See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian


----------



## TomP (May 3, 2015)

JimKE said:


> Uber would be out of their collective minds to give her any legal advice
> Becky has no legal standing to get a subpoena...unless she is a civil plaintiff, which she was not.


So if a driver is assaulted by a rider, and if the police are not investigating, perhaps as you suggest because the assigned detective is inept, then Uber should do nothing and give no advice or assistance to the driver "partner". Is that what you are saying? Is that how a responsible company should behave?


----------



## Cynergie (Apr 10, 2017)

TomP said:


> There is an article in the Guardian (published in the UK) about a San Diego driver who says that Uber did nothing after two customers assaulted her. See https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-assault-allegations-female-drivers-san-diego.
> 
> Here is a portion of the article:
> 
> ...


And this people, is why we need effing dash cams in every LyfUber vehicle. Travis needs to seriously consider stepping down given his fecal matter of a track record. If I lived in a state which honored the 2nd amendment the way Texas does, this BS would've never gone down.


----------



## TomP (May 3, 2015)

JimKE said:


> Also, just FYI -- The Guardian is a UK scandal-rag, roughly equivalent to the US National Inquirer. You might want to upgrade your sources of "news."





TomP said:


> JimKE attacked _The Guardian_ as being roughly equivalent to the US National Inquirer. According to Wikipedia, _The Guardian_ has been named Newspaper of the Year four times at the annual British Press Awards, the most recent in 2014 for reporting on government surveillance. Yes, it does report on scandals: In 2016, it led the investigation into the Panama Papers, exposing the then British Prime Minister David Cameron's links to offshore bank accounts. There are scandals worth reporting! See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian





JimKE said:


> It's a rag.


JimKE, you criticized the Guardian as being just a "scandal-rag" but provided no evidence of any irresponsible journalism. I provided evidence that _The Guardian_ has been named Newspaper of the Year four times at the annual British Press Awards, the most recent in 2014. And more recently, in 2016, the paper won an additional three awards. See https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...ops-three-prizes-at-british-journalism-awards.


----------



## JimKE (Oct 28, 2016)

TomP said:


> So if a driver is assaulted by a rider, and if the police are not investigating, perhaps as you suggest because the assigned detective is inept, then Uber should do nothing and give no advice or assistance to the driver "partner". Is that what you are saying? Is that how a responsible company should behave?


What assistance do you expect Uber to give her?

What should Uber advise her to do?

I'm happy to criticize Uber when they are wrong, but they are not the problem in this particular situation. The problem here is either that the detective isn't doing his job, or the detective doesn't believe her. Uber can't do much about either of those issues.


----------



## TomP (May 3, 2015)

JimKE said:


> What assistance do you expect Uber to give her?
> 
> What should Uber advise her to do?
> 
> I'm happy to criticize Uber when they are wrong, but they are not the problem in this particular situation. The problem here is either that the detective isn't doing his job, or the detective doesn't believe her. Uber can't do much about either of those issues.


First I'd like to say that I have limited experience with the law. I was assaulted once by a neighbour when I was a teenager. I ended up going to a crown attorney (I live in Canada) and giving my complaint under oath. The crown attorney laid the charge and I didn't have to do anything further.My assailant was found guilty and fined. And later we happened to meet and he apologized, without any court requirement to do so. But I digress.

Here is what I would recommend for Becky Graham in terms of the criminal charges: Get a copy of the doctor's report from the initial hospital visit. Get a copy of the report from the police officer you saw in the hospital. Get copies of all other medical reports. Get screenshots of the trip in question and the name and address of the destination hotel. Present this information to the police officer you are currently working with and ask the officer to subpoena Uber to get the identity of the riders so that they may be interviewed. If the police officer declines, ask to speak with the police officer's superior and ask to have the assault investigated. Go up the chain of command if you need to.

I expect that Uber would explain the process as I did above (but maybe through lack of familiarity with the system I am missing something). I would also expect that Uber would immediately investigate the incident at least by recorded phone calls to the alleged assailant who was the account holder and to the other rider to get their side of the story. Uber would advise the drivers than anything they say may be used in court. I'd expect that Uber would ban the rider account holder; in a he-said-she-said situation of opposing stories I would expect that Uber would support the driver. I expect that Uber would tell the driver that the account holder has been banned.

Finally, I think that Uber might say, "if as you say, you have been unable to work because of your injuries and if you have lost your front teeth as a result of the alleged assault, you might consider a civil suit against the rider. Some lawyers will handle civil suits on a contingency basis. If your retain a lawyer and the lawyer subpoenas us, we will provide the identity of the account holder rider to your lawyer."

Quoting again from the article in _The Guardian_:
Veena Dubal, an associate law professor at the University of California, Hastings, argued that the company should be forced to classify its drivers as employees, in which case it would be required to follow higher workplace standards and have systems in place for workers to report this kind of mistreatment.

"In any sort of service industry where you have customers interacting with employees, employers have a duty to make sure that when there are customers who are violent or belligerent or hostile, their employees are protected," she said.​The Becky Graham incident is an example of how drivers would benefit from being classed as employees. 
​


----------



## JimKE (Oct 28, 2016)

TomP said:


> Here is what I would recommend for Becky Graham in terms of the criminal charges: Get a copy of the doctor's report from the initial hospital visit. Get a copy of the report from the police officer you saw in the hospital. Get copies of all other medical reports. Get screenshots of the trip in question and the name and address of the destination hotel. Present this information to the police officer you are currently working with and ask the officer to subpoena Uber to get the identity of the riders so that they may be interviewed. If the police officer declines, ask to speak with the police officer's superior and ask to have the assault investigated. Go up the chain of command if you need to.


This is sound advice, and also what I would recommend. Everybody works for somebody, and if she was not initially satisfied, I would certainly go up the food chain. That may or may not be successful, but it's a logical first step and the step that would be most likely to be helpful.



> I expect that Uber would explain the process as I did above (but maybe through lack of familiarity with the system I am missing something).


You were doing all right for a minute there, but yes -- you are definitely missing something. Several things.

First of all, Uber has no place giving that kind of advice to anyone. That's advice Ms. Graham's family, friends, coworkers, etc should give. Uber has no business poking their noses into how she proceeds with a case.

Secondly, Uber is very much a potential civil _defendant_ in this matter. The drunks who roughed Ms. Graham up don't have any money. Uber does. The eventual outcome of all this is that she will sue Uber. So there is a huge disincentive for Uber to get involved at all.


> I would also expect that Uber would immediately investigate the incident at least by recorded phone calls to the alleged assailant who was the account holder and to the other rider to get their side of the story.


Well, we don't actually know that Uber didn't investigate -- do we? If they did, surely they would document their investigation in some manner...which could also be subpoened. The recorded phone calls would probably be either non-productive ("Hi! I'm an investigator from Uber and this call is recorded!" Click, buzz.) or seriously illegal.


> Uber would advise the drivers than anything they say may be used in court.


WHAT??? Please tell me you're joking!


> in a he-said-she-said situation of opposing stories I would expect that Uber would support the driver.


Ain't happening. You are just setting yourself up for disappointment.



> Finally, I think that Uber might say, "if as you say, you have been unable to work because of your injuries and if you have lost your front teeth as a result of the alleged assault, you might consider a civil suit against the rider. Some lawyers will handle civil suits on a contingency basis. If your retain a lawyer and the lawyer subpoenas us, we will provide the identity of the account holder rider to your lawyer."


The lawyer would laugh their butt off and file suit _against Uber_...for having a big bank account and a history of settling lawsuits quickly and profitably.



> Quoting again from the article in _The Guardian_:
> Veena Dubal, an associate law professor at the University of California, Hastings, argued that the company should be forced to classify its drivers as employees, in which case it would be required to follow higher workplace standards and have systems in place for workers to report this kind of mistreatment.
> 
> "In any sort of service industry where you have customers interacting with employees, employers have a duty to make sure that when there are customers who are violent or belligerent or hostile, their employees are protected," she said.​The Becky Graham incident is an example of how drivers would benefit from being classed as employees.


This is totally irrelevant to Ms. Graham's case. The fact is, Ms. Graham was not an Uber employee. Woulda, coulda, shoulda is just fairy tale stuff.

The reason this quote is in the story -- in fact, *the only reason this story was even written in the first place* -- is that Uber drivers in the UK are trying to get classified as employees. And the Guardian is supportive of that effort, so this story and the perspective reflected in it contribute to their desired outcome. If Ms. Graham worked for anybody other than Uber, this would not be newsworthy.
​


----------



## Shea F. Kenny (Jan 3, 2015)

Again, all you need to do is supply Uber with a police report number, their security team will follow up with local police. At least in the U.S.. Without this, a police detective will need either a warrant or subpoena.


----------



## TomP (May 3, 2015)

Shea F. Kenny said:


> Again, all you need to do is supply Uber with a police report number, their security team will follow up with local police. At least in the U.S.. Without this, a police detective will need either a warrant or subpoena.


If all that is required is a police report number, couldn't Uber have advised Becky Graham of this?


----------



## JimKE (Oct 28, 2016)

TomP said:


> If all that is required is a police report number, couldn't Uber have advised Becky Graham of this?


Yes, they could have advised her to have the police contact their security folks or provide a case number and contact info for the detective. The detective should have made that contact on his own if he was interested in the case.

Uber wouldn't be able to give him anything, but what typically happens is they could _tell him what info they possess_ so that he could subpoena everything. Very often, a source like that has much more information than the inquirer can imagine, so it's always a good idea to ask "If I send you a subpoena, what can you tell me." The answer to that question is often mind-boggling.

I'm also sure we all realize that there is more to this story than we read in the article.

The article is the reporter's understanding of one part of this case. It's not even one full side of the story -- it's really only _that part of one side of the story_ the victim is willing to share, and that information is edited by the reporter and editors to produce the end product. The end product of ANY news story about anything is most often not what really happened. It's one person's idea about what happened, as edited by someone else with no knowledge of the incident.

So the detective in this case might be lazy, as I said earlier. Or he/she might be inept...or overwhelmed with cases, or going on vacation, or retiring next week, or who knows? OR...the detective might know a LOT more about this case, and might have made the correct decision in not proceeding. OR...the detective may have taken what they had to prosecutors and been told not to waste time because they wouldn't file a case anyway.

None of us know, and neither does the newspaper.


----------

