The dark side of cab travel
The safety credentials of cab aggregators have come under scrutiny after multiple women have reported unpleasant encounters with drivers.
On July 25, Prathyusha Parakala did something that she usually does not do — book an Uber cab to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. What followed was a chain of events that is not unheard of, ever since the country has gotten comfortable with the concept of rented cab service.
“I was on the way to the airport, sometime around 5.30 am. I usually do not take cabs but I was late and needed a ride immediately. On the way to the airport, via the OYC Flyover route, I asked the driver to take the flyover. He blatantly refused and took a left turn under the flyover, claiming it was a shorter route. The area around the apparent shortcut is underdeveloped and very shady. On top of that, it is 5. 30 am during monsoon, which is practically night time. When I confronted the driver, he stopped the cab, locked the doors, switched off the AC and started arguing with me. This was not a share cab. It was an Uber Go, which meant the fare would change according to the route or extra kilometres I would be travelling, if any extra kilometres at all,” Prathyusha, a radio jockey with a leading radio station, said.
Feels like you’ve heard this story before? That is probably because you have.
Shivangi Sinha Roy, a working professional, shares an uncannily similar incident. “We were a group of four girls, coming back home around 2.30 am in an Uber cab. We live in a gated community, where the main gate closes after a certain time. Now the GPS had rerouted us on a longer route and I asked the driver to take a shorter one, to which he stopped the cab and started shouting at us. The limit was crossed when he started making comments such as ‘Acha, aap log kaha se aarahe ho, itne chotte kapde pehan ke, itni raat ko?’ (Where are you coming from? Why are you wearing such short clothes?)”
In the case of Prathyusha, when she called Uber’s emergency contact, an operator immediately took her call, spoke to the driver, tracked her car, and asked her to leave them a message saying she had reached the airport safely. They followed it up with a formal apology, which Prathyusha does not feel is enough. “I do not know if they took any step against the driver or not. I wonder if he is still out there ferrying more people, misbehaving with them too.”
Shivangi, however, was not lucky enough. When she tried to contact Uber on their customer care, nobody picked up and the call was diverted to a computer-generated operator. It wasn’t until the next day that Uber India reverted to Shivangi’s tweets and issued an apology.
Arpita Biswas, a 23-year old professional from Hyderabad, shares a different horror story. “I got into the cab and the driver immediately shut down the app and the GPS. On reaching the destination, the driver asked me to pay whatever amount was initially displayed on the app.”
The traffic cops and local police, however, have a different protocol when it comes to a problem of this nature. “If someone calls us on the police emergency number, we immediately reach the spot. After reaching there, we assess how much of a threat the driver is and whether the complaint stands true. If the driver is erring, we first call the cab aggregator company and then decide what kind of action should be taken. But customers can call, text, or tweet to us at any point of time to lodge a complaint,” says Babu Rao, DCP (traffic) Hyderabad.
“Based on the call of the complainant, appropriate legal action is taken after assessing the entire situation, if the driver is truly at fault,” says Anil Kumar, IPS, Hyderabad.
We tried to reach out to Uber India for a comment, but haven’t received one yet.
HT02