I don't think Uber's model is necessarily conducive to this, but with small private hire firms it is likely that any case like this would bankrupt them so they may be more careful about drivers they take on. Uber has scale, but that also divorces it from the effects of "one bad apple".

Also, while I agree that taxi drivers are no better than any group - if you've paid for a medallion I doubt you would waste all that on committing a crime like this.

Running an unlicensed cab - now that is a dodgy bunch of people that no-one should get in a car with.

Few (if any) taxi drivers are medallion owners. Drivers pay lease fees to access medallions and the vehicles to which they're attached.

True, but in some places taxi drivers are vetted or have background check to some degree before being allowed to operate. The question is are Uber's practices too lax in this regard?

But don't medallion owners also hire drivers? Not all of them care about their employer's reputation.

Thus, surely some negligible——but still tangible——fraction of cab drivers, working for Uber or not, will at some point rape a customer no matter what but with Uber the chances to collect evidence and identify the driver after the fact is probably much better, making it likely for the abusing driver to be prosecuted. This in turn creates a deterrent. With a regular cab, unless the customer can identify the car s/he doesn't really know who the driver is. Further, all the bad driver needs to do is to cover the cab number and become practically anonymous.

Exactly. Rapes have been occurring in taxis for a long time, the only difference is Uber provides more accountability as you have a complete record of the transaction (gps location, personal information of the driver, etc) digitally stored. What these stories should focus on is how quickly these situations get resolved given the wealth of information provided by Uber (as opposed to a taxi cab) and how quickly that will act as a deterrent.

I mostly agree, but (a) is untrue. A driver of a popular Bay Area airport shuttle service raped a woman and I did read about it.

but you only hear about it locally. Even so, when you hear about an uber incident, it's information aggregated across multiple markets (boston, india, etc.)

Yup, exactly. As someone with loved ones in Cambridge who use Uber constantly, and is therefore extremely distressed by rapists prowling their neighborhoods... thank god for Uber.

I'm a tall, professional male with a law degree who's never intoxicated or high. Even then, I've had many cabs do shady stuff in NYC and even I couldn't recall who drove me, if the driver's license (if displayed at all) matched the driver's physical description, or even what make and model the cab itself was -- much less critically important information like the license plate or the driver's name.

For rapists, the ability to lock a woman in a car and drive her anywhere you choose has always been a singular advantage to driving a cab. I wouldn't expect a traumatized victim to be able to remember the car or driver's details, or even where she was taken. Thankfully, Uber now records all that for you. It's a powerful deterrent to rapists who otherwise would enjoy the freedom to kidnap at will.

If this article can be used in service of any particular statement, it's that there are truly awful people in the world who perhaps should be locked away much longer than they are now. I know this opinion is at odds with the general sentiment that prison sentences are too long already, but I'm not particularly eager for Alejandro Done to get out and continue preying on women.

Most taxi companies in big cities track their cars with GPS these days. It's really too cheap not to do it these days. They've already got cellular transmitters in them for credit card processing, so adding a GPS phone-home isn't incredibly costly.