SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — After a spate of recent high-profile incidents involving rideshare app drivers carjacked and robbed in the mid-South, a Memphis Uber driver says the company is not doing enough to protect its workers.
Uber driver Tyler McNinch says he was working on Monday night when a passenger directed him to the back of a North Memphis scrapyard that seemed to him to be abandoned. When several men then surrounded his car he sped away immediately, fearful he was the next victim.
“[They] approached me, starting touching my car and yelling at me. I immediately got out of there,” he said.
But McNinch says Uber has been less than reassuring in its response.
“They basically told me not only are we not going to pay you for this ride because you didn't do it, they’d look into it, and that’s all,” he said. "And this is not the first time it's happened."
Last week, two separate Uber drivers were carjacking victims.
According to MPD, on June 12 an Uber driver picked up 27-year-old Faith-Ann Mittons, a little before 4:30 a.m., in Northeast Memphis. As the driver was dropping her off, police said Mittons forced the driver out of the car and took off in it.
Two days before that, on June 10, Memphis Airport Police Department (MAPD) responded to a shooting on a parking lot where a rideshare driver was shot. Another rideshare who has there told MAPD the suspects on that case also attempted to steal the shooting victim's car and his own car, without success.
MPD told ABC24 on Wednesday that they don’t specifically track crimes involving rideshare drivers, and the occupation of a victim is not something they’re monitoring.
McNinch and other Uber drivers, who did not want to go on-camera, say there’s not enough accountability for people who are passengers, rather than drivers.
“I’m required to submit to a background check, use my real name, my face, facial recognition on a regular basis to be a driver. None of that is a requirement of Uber riders,” McNinch said.
Uber says there are a number of different strategies in place to keep drivers and riders safe, including an emergency button that can call 911 immediately, GPS tracking of all rides, and a RideCheck that assists drivers and riders in the event of a crash.
In a statement, Uber told ABC24, “Uber’s commitment to driver safety is unwavering. We continue to invest in impactful safety updates to the app, including launching features like in-app audio recording, the ability to chat with a live safety agent, and rider verification measures.”