Almost every week we get to read a headline about a cab driver assaulted on a deserted stretch, a body found near a highway, a cab hijacked after a late-night pickup. The tragedy is not only the violence itself, but the complete absence of awareness about it. For the city that depends on these cab drivers, their suffering is background noise.
One realised how deep this malady is while taking a cab last week. I had a 21-year-old as my chauffeur for a sparkly new sedan. During the course of the journey, one realised that at the beginning of the travel, the cabbie had received a call if he was comfortable with his pick. During the course of the journey too, he received a call if all was fine.
One decided to check with him, why he was getting these calls. He replied that his family has pawned farmland to buy him this vehicle for livelihood. They were against it initially as this trade has now come to be perceived as dangerous. But since there were not many options available they decided to buy him a vehicle but keep monitoring him.
A nationwide survey last year of app-based workers had estimated that nearly half of cab drivers have faced some form of violence on the job. Think about the scale that implies in Delhi-NCR, the largest app-based mobility market in the country, where drivers navigate not just well lighted roads of the metropolis but also the lawless dark stretches of Noida-Greater Noida Expressway, the isolated villages of Gurugram and Faridabad’s outskirts, and the unpoliced slip roads of Ghaziabad.
However, it may be noticed that the violence against these drivers could take place even in the middle of Lutyens’ Delhi.
What makes this issue particularly troubling is the near-total absence of official data on the matter. Neither Delhi Police nor the police forces of surrounding cities publicly release occupation-wise crime victim figures. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) publishes extensive statistics on offences, but its publicly accessible reports do not isolate “cab or taxi drivers” as a victim category.
In effect, the system that depends heavily on cabbies has no clear mechanism to track how often they are targeted. The platforms will just tell you they have “robust safety mechanisms”.
In reality, their safety architecture is designed almost entirely around the passenger. Drivers, by contrast, work in a space of defencelessness.
Cab drivers often work late nights and early mornings, when streets are emptier and policing thinner. Isolated pickups, long highway stretches, and rapidly developing semi-urban areas in Gurugram, Faridabad, Noida, and Ghaziabad are particularly dangerous.
The cab drivers’ job demands they enter unknown neighbourhoods, accept trips from strangers, and transport them without hesitation. This lopsided relationship, where the driver has to trust the passenger without protection, is at the heart of this danger.
Cab drivers form an essential backbone of the region’s transport economy, enabling millions to commute, work, and travel comfortably. Persistent violence erodes the sense of safety that sustains Delhi-NCR’s mobility ecosystem.
When a driver is assaulted, the platform’s usual response is an automated email, a case number, and silence. The faceless communication is an innovation of gig economy, built on human disposability. However, one has to realise that if the profession becomes untenable, the ripple effects will be felt by
passengers, businesses, and the broader urban infrastructure.
What is the way forward? The first step is acknowledgment. Governments, police forces, and the NCRB must begin collecting and publishing occupation-wise data.
Without reliable numbers, the problem will remain invisible in policymaking. Platforms must be mandated to ensure verified passenger identities, real-time location-sharing, and automatic reporting of suspicious route deviations even for drivers as well.
Third, a dedicated helpline and a fast-track mechanism for such crimes should be implemented in each NCR district. Finally, driver unions and civil-society organisations need to be integrated into policymaking forums on urban mobility and worker safety.
Until these reforms take place, many cab drivers’ parents in Delhi-NCR would remain worried thinking about their child navigating danger in silence. Their safety is not just an employment issue. It is a public safety issue, a governance issue and, most importantly, a human issue the city can no longer afford to ignore.