Taxi-hailing firm reveals 4,158 reports of sexual assault

Lyft, the US taxi-hailing app, has said that 4,158 incidents of sexual assault were reported to the firm between 2017 and 2019.

In its first-ever safety report, Lyft also detailed the number of motor vehicle deaths and fatal physical assaults during the period.

Those instances were far outweighed by the volume of sexual attacks reported over the three years.

Lyft said "over 99% of trips occurred without any reported safety incident".

But it said: "Behind every number, there is a person who experienced that incident. Put simply, even one of these incidents is too many.

"That is what drives our relentless work to continuously improve safety for riders and drivers."

Lyft, alongside its larger US rival Uber, had pledged in 2018 to release data on serious safety incidents and abuse.

The following year, Uber disclosed 5,981 reports of sexual assault involving passengers and drivers between 2017 and 2018.

Lyft has failed to publish figures until now.

Of the 4,158 incidents of sexual assaults disclosed by Lyft, 360 were reports of rape.

Between the beginning of 2017 and the end of 2019, Lyft said it had recorded 105 motor vehicle fatalities and 10 deaths involving physical assaults.

Lyft is facing a number of US lawsuits from passengers over alleged sexual assault and the first trial is scheduled to take place in 2022. Uber is also being sued in the US over similar claims.

In its safety report, Lyft said the data was based on when an incident was reported to the company and not necessarily when the incident occurred.

It said: "We recognize that sexual assault is chronically underreported, and it can sometimes be months or years before a survivor is ready to come forward and report what happened - if they choose to do so at all.

"Knowing this, Lyft included any incident reported in 2017, 2018 and 2019, regardless of when the incident was reported to have occurred."

The company said that 52% of reports of sexual assault were made by passengers, 38% came from drivers and the remaining 10% were made through third parties such as law enforcement.

Lyft said also said "individuals who are accused of committing the types of incidents detailed in this report will be permanently removed from the Lyft community, preventing them from riding or driving in the future".