10 months ago
A University of Southern California student was allegedly raped by a Lyft driver who picked her up from a nighttime retired successful West Hollywood Wednesday.
Police are actively searching for nan Lyft driver, who assaulted nan unidentified female wrong his car astatine nan 3600 artifact of South Grand Avenue.
The driver is described arsenic a thinly built man betwixt nan property of 25 to 35 years old with a achromatic beard and achromatic hair.
After attending nan Halloween Carnival successful West Hollywood, nan female student hailed a achromatic sedan done a rideshare service.
The female student was reportedly attacked astatine astir 3am Wednesday aft she and nan driver arrived astatine her flat adjacent nan USC campus.
A University of Southern California student was allegedly raped by a Lyft driver who picked her up from a nighttime retired successful West Hollywood Wednesday.
'Our thoughts are pinch nan unfortunate and this has nary spot successful society. Based connected nan accusation disposable astatine this time,' a Lyft spokesperson said successful a connection to DailyMail.com.
'We person not identified a study aliases thrust matching nan explanation and can't corroborate it progressive nan Lyft platform.
'We person reached retired to rule enforcement and guidelines fresh to assistance pinch their investigation.'
USC besides sent retired an alert to its community, detailing nan business and providing fishy information.
The San Francisco-based recorded much than 4,000 claims of intersexual assault from 2017 to 2019, according to its first information study successful 2021.
The study came aft chap thrust sharing institution Uber released akin information successful a 2019 study which revealed astir 6,000 reported cases betwixt 2017 to 2018.
In total, Lyft reported 1,096 reports of intersexual battle successful 2017, 1,255 successful 2018 and 1,807 successful 2019. There were besides 360 full reports of rape betwixt nan 3 years.
'We admit that intersexual battle is chronically underreported, and it tin sometimes beryllium months aliases years earlier a subsister is fresh to travel guardant and study what happened — if they take to do truthful astatine all,' nan institution wrote successful a connection astatine nan time.
'Knowing this, Lyft included immoderate incident reported successful 2017, 2018 and 2019, sloppy of erstwhile nan incident was reported to person occurred.'
Lyft will let women and non-binary riders to take female drivers
Women+ Connect is hoped to promote women and nonbinary riders to consciousness much confident
The level started allowing women and non-binary riders to choose female drivers successful September.
Women+ Connect is hoped to promote women and nonbinary drivers and riders consciousness much assured erstwhile utilizing nan carrier platform.
The instrumentality would beryllium accessible for those who prime their gender arsenic female aliases non-binary, aliases those pinch a commonly identifiable women's name.
While nan app will prioritize matches pinch adjacent women and nonbinary, Women+ Connect is simply a penchant feature, not a guarantee.
The characteristic only rolled retired successful prime early-access cities successful nan US, including Chicago, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose.
The institution was antecedently encouraged to people a yearly study connected driver information and travel up pinch processes to guarantee drivers felt they could move down unsafe rides, Bloomberg reported.
'Women drivers for illustration nan elasticity that (Lyft) offers for earnings, but location are times, you know, precocious astatine night, aliases Saturday nighttime erstwhile things get a small rowdy, that they deliberation to themselves gosh, I conscionable don’t ever consciousness comfortable,' Chief Executive Officer David Risher said.
Lyft faced a California suit successful 2019 by 14 plaintiffs who claimed that nan institution did not return steps to forestall intersexual battle aliases unit from its drivers.
One suit progressive Alison Turkos, 33, who claimed she was kidnapped and pack raped by her driver and 2 men successful 2017 while connected a travel from Brooklyn to a parkland successful New Jersey.
After notifying Lyft of nan terrifying incident, she was still forced to salary nan interest for nan thrust and was 'unpaired' her from nan driver.
She besides reported to nan incident to nan NYPD who opened an investigation and contacted nan FBI. It was said to beryllium handled arsenic a quality trafficking case.
