Uber to let women avoid male riders and drivers
July 23 (UPI) -- Uber said Wednesday its new feature will allow women passengers and drivers to avoid being paired with men on the ride-sharing app in a push to enhance safety.
Across the United States, "women riders and drivers have told us they want the option to be matched with other women on trips," Camiel Irving, Uber's VP of U.S. and Canada operations, wrote in a release.
"We've heard them -- and now we're introducing new ways to give them even more control over how they ride and drive."
The pilot program is slated to begin next month in the United States. It will permit and prioritize a woman-to-woman match when they book or pre-book a ride, which can be a new preference in the app's settings.
It also will allow a female driver the option to choose only another person of the same gender.
Irving says it's about giving women more choice, control and comfort.
However, the option is not a guaranteed but does maximize the likelihood of woman-woman pairing.
The Uber pilot program will start American operations in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Detroit.
It begins in the United States after the feature's trial run in Germany, France and Argentina.
"Most drivers are men, so we've worked to ensure this feature was truly usable in different places around the world," Irving added.
Uber in 2019 put out its women ride preference in Saudi Arabia after women were granted the right to drive the year prior, which saw the ride feature expanded to roughly 40 other nations.
That came after the global ride-sharing company was given a $3.5 billion Saudi investment in 2016.
It's among a number of other safety features Uber unveiled in recent years.
It comes nearly a year after Uber's competitor Lyft launched its own similar app options for women and nonbinary persons.
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