CHENNAI: Ride safety is something that the victimised Delhi woman didn’t have, though Uber’s website has extensive references and commitments on the same.
“From the moment you request a ride to the moment you arrive, the Uber experience has been designed from the ground up with your safety in mind,” reads the service’s ‘rider safety’ tab.
It also claims that drivers are put through a “rigorous process” of verification — something that did not happen in the Delhi case. Drivers interviewed by Express pointed out how easy it to start driving for Uber. Within 24 hours of registering your name with the service, you could be picking up your first customer. “They are in a rush to try and capture a chunk of the market here, so it all moves very fast,” said a driver.
However, going by Uber’s website, US drivers are put through three levels of verification — county, federal and multi-state checks, with other conditions attached — no sexual or violent offencesand so on. If this is the case for the US, why the double standard when it comes to India? It emerged on Tuesday of 4,000 drivers on Uber’s roll, it did not have a clue as to whether they had police verification or had the mandatory Public Service Vehicle badge.
Another issue relates to insurance cover. While the website claims that the ride is covered by commercial liability insurance “for every trip in every city around the world”, the details of this cover remains fuzzy for India.