Rideshare platforms like Uber and Lyft have offered tens of millions of rideshare trips over the years.
While rideshare options are typically fast and convenient, one unignorable component to this is safety.
Over the years, several incidents have occurred, namely to women, in strangers’ cars they hailed on Uber or Lyft.
Now, one platform is offering female riders the option to be driven by other females.
Rideshare platform Uber announced Wednesday that it is starting a program to allow female passengers to select female drivers or share rides with other female passengers.
This pilot program will begin in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit (via CBS News):
In a Wednesday statement, Uber said that women customers will see an option called "women drivers" in the app. If the wait time for a woman driver is longer than they would like, they can pick another ride — presumably with a male driver — for a quicker pickup, the company said.
"Across the U.S., women riders and drivers have told us they want the option to be matched with other women on trips," Uber said in its statement.
One drawback of this service is the wait times. Uber has previously stated that about 1 in 5 of its drivers are women.
"That is what we expect to learn more about during this pilot. Riders may experience longer wait times if women drivers are unavailable or further away. If so, they can choose to wait, reserve a ride with a woman driver for a later time, or choose a ride with any available driver that may not match their preference," an Uber spokesperson said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch.
On the flip side, female drivers can request to pick up female passengers.
CBS noted that this feature has been rolled out in many countries, starting in Saudi Arabia.
"Since then, the feature has expanded to 40 countries, completing over 100 million trips," the company told the outlet.
