Tourists and travelers have to embrace a lot of challenges when going to another country: the new and unknown language, following directions that are often marked differently, how to understand the attitude of the people in another culture, etc. Unfortunately, the problems that some of them have are bigger than others, such as being a victim of a rape in a country where you don’t know anything that can help you. In order for this tragedy to be avoided, Uber has introduces some new security features for those who go to India, taking into consideration that a lot of experiences of that kind happen in this particular region.
There is an alternative company of taxi named the San Francisco taxi that has launched the “panic button” on its ride-hailing app, with the help of which those who ride in it can call the police in case they are in danger or in need of an emergency help. Also, a “safety net” feature allows the riders to share their destination information with five other people, and also where they are located at that moment.
Uber is the one that controls all these emergencies through a local team that will react every time the panic button is pushed. All these new features will become available next Wednesday and even if no other countries have been stated to take part of the project, the company assures the press and the locals that more updates will be coming soon.
The rape tragedy that has happened in New Delhi in December lead to a lawsuit against Uber in January, in which the company is sued because of the lack of safety that it being offered to its customers. As a response to this lawsuit, Uber believes that they are going to file for another one, if the Indian prosecutors think that the safety of its services is being misrepresented.
For the moment, Uber is being banned in New Delihi and also in the entire southern state of Karntaka, with the approval of the regulators in MumBAI. They have stated on Thursday in the Times of India that Uber needs to take care of this new safety issue and that it will be reintroduced after the panic button and the access to the police phone calls will be available in these regions. In consequence, Uber is looking forward to support the physical panic buttons, if the owners of the vehicles that will use them support the installation of everything involved.
Image Source: Saddahaq
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