San Francisco, Dec 6 (AFP/APP): Nearly 6,000 instances of sexual assault, including more than 450 cases of rape, were reported to Uber in the United States in 2017 and 2018, the ride-sharing company said in a report on safety released Thursday. It is the first time that Uber has released the figures — which also revealed 19 fatal assaults related to the company over the two-year period — as it and rival Lyft face increasing pressure to cope with the growing number of complaints of abuse. The company received 464 reports of non-consensual sexual penetration and 587 of attempted non-consensual sexual penetration in 2017 and 2018. The other assaults fell into categories such as non-consensual kissing or touching. While the number of reports went up from 2017 to 2018 in three of the five categories, including non-consensual sexual penetration and non-consensual touching of a sexual body part, the ride-sharing service hailed across-the-board declines in the “incident rate” based on a larger number of overall trips occurring in the latter year. “From 2017 to 2018, Uber saw approximately a 16 percent decrease in the average incident rate across the five most serious sexual assault categories reported. Additionally, there were rate decreases … Continue reading Nearly 6,000 US sexual assaults reported to Uber in 2017 and 2018