A horror story came to life at 2 am last Friday morning when Samantha Josephson, a student at the University of South Carolina, left a local bar and got into a vehicle she believed was her Uber, and was never seen alive again. She was found less than a day later, 90 miles from her pickup location, with wounds covering her entire body. This incident has brought the dangers of usingUber into the light, and as a college student who rides in Ubers a lot by myself, this story is particularly haunting. I wanted to share five of the best safety tips that I’ve picked up over the years to help keep other young college students and women in general safe.
ALWAYS confirm all of your Uber’s information.
Before getting in your Uber, walk around to the back of the vehicle and double check that the license plate matches the one on the driver’s uber profile. If those match up, then walk to the driver’s window and make sure that the driver matches the photo on their profile, and ask them what their name is and make sure that matches up as well. I always feel like I’m being dramatic when I practically conduct an investigation before getting in any Uber, but this is one of the most sure fire ways to make sure you stay safe during your ride.
Ask your driver to confirm your information.
Quite like a job, there is a second interview phase when you want to ensure that your Uber is completely safe. After you quiz them on all their information, make sure that they know yours. Instead of asking “Are you here to pick up blank,” ask them “Who are you here to pick up?” The app should give them your name so that is an answer that they should know if they are a real driver. If you really want to make sure you’re safe, you can even ask them what the destination is, which is another piece of information that any Uber driver would have.
Set up a few trusted contacts in the Uber app.
The Uber app has a wonderful feature where you can input contact information of a parent, partner, sibling, friend, or anyone important to you, and the app will send an alert to them when you take a ride. You can set up the notifications to only send out when you ride in the late evening hours and the early morning hours, or to send out every single time you take an Uber ride. This notification allows your trusted contact to track your ride, so they will be able to see if you take any unexpected detours or an extremely long delay and can verify if you’re ok or notify the authorities.
If you can, try not to ride alone.
I know depending on the circumstance it may be completely unavoidable to ride with somebody else, but there really is a lot of truth to the statement “power in numbers.” It is more unlikely for an attacker to strike if there’s more than one person because they know there is the possibility of being overpowered or of having a witness.
If you must ride alone, sit in the backseat.
Uber has their own safety tips, and one of the most useful in my opinion is to always sit in the backseat when riding alone. It is much more difficult for the driver to attack you or grab you if he has to reach behind while driving. Also, if you were to notice that your driver was taking you off course or if they begian to act dangerously, you could escape through either side of the car, depending what side oncoming traffic is on, and have a better chance of doing so safely.