Rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft advertise how their services make transportation easier, cheaper, and safer than more traditional options like taxis or public transit.
At the same time, both companies acknowledge that “safer” doesn’t mean “entirely danger-free.” Serious crimes, including sexual assault and kidnapping, happen often enough during rides that Uber and Lyft track them internally, disclose them publicly, and respond to them in court. That alone tells us something important about the scope of the problem.
Today we’ll look at self-reported sexual assault numbers from Uber and Lyft. We’ll also talk about why their reporting methods could understate the real totals, and what thousands of reported assaults say about supervision, hiring, and accountability in the rideshare industry.
How Many Sexual Assaults Does Uber Report?
Uber publishes U.S. Safety Reports that document adverse incidents during rides, all in the name of transparency. As you might imagine, the report heavily emphasizes all the Uber rides without incidents, presenting assaults as rare anomalies. That said, there are still a large number of sexual assault incidents documented in the report.
In its first report covering 2017–2018, Uber disclosed nearly 6,000 reports of sexual assault. The second report, covering 2019–2020, listed 3,824 reported incidents. The third and most recent report, covering 2021–2022, cited 2,717 reports of sexual misconduct. The company readily points out the 44% reduction of reported incidents over those five years.
Adding the totals together, Uber disclosed 12,522 reported sexual assault incidents in the United States between 2017 and 2022. As of this writing, the company hasn’t published reports for more recent years.
High-Profile Uber Incidents
Most of those thousands of incidents didn’t make headlines on their own. When Uber appears in the news for related reasons, it’s usually because of patterns rather than individual cases.
The clearest example is the federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) currently pending in California. Thousands of participating plaintiffs from across the country reportedly allege that Uber drivers kidnapped and/or sexually assaulted them. The seriousness of the allegations and the size of the plaintiff group have garnered national attention from press and app users alike. 2022 had a surge of similar individual lawsuits, with hundreds of sexual assault and kidnapping-related claims filed against Uber in a short period.
Zooming in to something more specific, federal prosecutors in the Houston area recently announced charges against four Uber drivers accused of kidnapping and assaulting passengers. Those cases stood apart not only for their specific details, but also because prosecutors alleged more than one driver was a repeat offender.
The lawsuits led to Uber promising internal reviews and better safety practices, but none of that undid the harm already done.
How Many Sexual Assaults Does Lyft Report?
Lyft’s reported numbers are lower than Uber’s, but they’re still significant. Like Uber, Lyft publishes Safety Transparency Reports that disclose incidents it becomes aware of.
Between 2017 and 2019, Lyft reported 4,158 sexual assault incidents involving drivers. Its second report, covering 2020–2022, disclosed 2,651 incidents across its most serious sexual assault categories. Lyft hasn’t published any reports for 2023-2024.
Combined, Lyft reported 6,809 sexual assault incidents from 2017 through 2022. That figure comes in at roughly half of Uber’s reported total, but it still carries significant weight. We’re still talking about thousands of reported assault, which suggest major concerns about Lyft’s hiring, monitoring, and response systems.
High-Profile Lyft Incidents
Lyft’s most visible cases emerged through the criminal justice system. One widely cited case involved a former Lyft driver in St. Louis who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and raping a passenger during an active ride. Another case involved a former Lyft driver in Austin, whom a court convicted in 2025 after he allegedly diverted a route and sexually assaulted a rider.
Lyft also faced (and faces) its share of civil litigation. In 2024, for example, the company reached a nationally reported shareholder settlement after allegations that it failed to address reported assaults by drivers. The company may also be on track to receive its own MDL similar to Uber’s. In late 2025 many individual plaintiffs filed a motion to consolidate all their sexual assault lawsuits into one. Lyft opposed the motion; a hearing is set for early 2026.
Why Uber and Lyft’s Reporting Undercounts the Problem
If you add Uber’s and Lyft’s published numbers together, you get roughly 19,331 reported sexual assault incidents in the U.S. between 2017 and 2022. That figure may give a sense of scale, but it also has serious limitations.
First, Uber and Lyft could be the most transparent companies that ever existed, but it still doesn’t override the cloud of suspicion that comes from a company self-reporting their own bad behavior. Put simply, Uber and Lyft aren’t disinterested parties. They have their reputation on the line and potential legal liability for any role they played in these situations.
Second, these reports likely only capture a portion of real-world harm. Many sexual assault victims never even report the crimes to police, let alone to the rideshare companies. Research consistently shows underreporting in sexual assault cases, which means the published figures are almost certainly low already. If the companies only accept some claims as valid, that drops the number even lower.
Recent litigation underscores this point. Granted, these calculations come from plaintiffs’ attorneys, i.e. the lawyers suing on behalf of alleged sexual assault victims, but they say that the true number of sexual assaults on Uber rides was closer to 394,000 between 2017 and 2022. 394,000 is a far cry from the 12,522 assaults reported in Uber’s official disclosures. Those claims may include a wide range of conduct and may not all be substantiated, but they show how dramatically the numbers can change depending on who is doing the counting.
The bottom line is that the roughly 19,000 reported assaults between both companies should realistically be understood as a floor, not a ceiling.
An Attorney’s Perspective on Uber and Lyft Sexual Assaults
I spoke with attorney Michael Grossman for his take on the legal implications of these numbers. Mr. Grossman told me that when we’re looking at large numbers, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that each one represents a person who has experienced one of the worst things they can ever go through. In the debate about Uber’s and Lyft’s self-reported numbers versus the allegations made by plaintiff’s attorneys, some may overlook the real human cost of each incident. Rather than get preoccupied by statistics, Mr. Grossman suggested this approach:
- Focus on getting the victims the help they need.
- Ensure offending drivers face appropriate criminal consequences.
- Hold Uber and Lyft accountable for any role their policies (or lack thereof) played in a sexual assault.
That last point is the most contentious. There are some people who believe that rideshare companies are always responsible for anything their drivers do wrong. On the other hand, others believe that Uber and Lyft drivers are contractors and that nothing that happens in a driver’s car is the company’s responsibility. While this is still an evolving legal landscape, the reality is somewhere in the middle.
Looking at the drop in reported sexual assaults from Uber’s first report to the second strongly suggests that Uber’s policies and screening can make a difference. If that’s indeed the case, then a failure to implement those best practices means that Uber’s own actions or inaction can contribute to sexual assaults. In those instances, it’s quite possible the Uber or Lyft may have some responsibility for a number of assaults.
The main takeaway from my conversation with attorney Michael Grossman is that each of these incidents is very fact-specific and victims could benefit from a free consultation with an attorney to get a better understanding of what legal options are available to them, based on their circumstances.
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