By Arielle Appleby
After a passenger looped a wire around an Uber driver’s neck and cinched it tight last month, police say the woman broke free and bolted from her car, screaming as she burst into the closest store in sight, pleading for someone to call 911.
While sitting at a red light at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Columbus Avenue in Boston’s South End, police say Christopher Dawkins, 24, of Dorchester, looped a wire around an Uber driver’s neck and strangled her, and then stole her car after she escaped.
Dawkins pleaded not guilty during his arraignment on carjacking, strangulation, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and larceny of a motor vehicle charges in Boston Municipal Court on Nov. 27. He was ordered to be held without bail.
For rideshare drivers – especially women and people of color – attacks are an occupational hazard they live with every shift. Car accidents, unruly passengers, and verbal harassment are ever-present threats, but many vulnerable drivers say they feel like they are risking their lives each time they slide behind the wheel.
According to an April 2023 Strategic Organizing Center report, which was working with the rideshare drivers union about the safety concerns of rideshare drivers, “sixty-seven percent of rideshare driver respondents reported having experienced some kind of violence, harassment or threatening behavior in the last year.”
The attack in Boston is one of many cautionary tales for rideshare drivers, especially those who are women or people of color.
Attackers typically target those they believe are the most vulnerable. Seventy-nine percent of app-based drivers have felt unsafe, and female drivers experience higher rates of sexual harassment, according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Many Lyft and Uber drivers depend on their jobs to provide for their families, and researchers say they often fear that intervening and speaking up may lower their ratings and endanger their jobs.
“When I walk into a Union meeting, it’s like walking onto the pages of a giant John Steinbeck novel,” said Duane Mitchell, curator of the Massachusetts Drivers United website. “They’re really vulnerable and extremely exploited people, especially since a lot of them don’t speak English.”
Mitchell’s prior experience as a Boston cab driver versus an Uber driver illustrates what he says is a stark difference in safety standards.
“I had to take safety classes with training by the Boston police before I could get my cab driver’s license,” said Mitchell. “There is a bulletproof partition separating you from the driver in cabs, but Uber doesn’t care; there’s none of that.”
Beyond the issue of Uber’s lack of safety protocols, Mitchell said there is simultaneously a lack of community within rideshare drivers. As a cabbie, he said there was a sense of togetherness, and drivers would alert each other about potential dangers.
“Many of us had an extra radio in our cab just to speak with other drivers. We had two radios going, one for the cab company and the other to speak with each other,” he said. “We heard stories all the time and were always aware of the potential danger.”
Uber doesn’t make space for that camaraderie, according to Mitchell, which leads to isolation and fear of self-reporting incidents by drivers.
Attacks on rideshare drivers are rare in Boston, he said, but one wrong ride can change people’s perception of the risk.
“People are nice all over Boston,” Mitchell said, “but all it takes is one lunatic.”
Arielle Appleby is a student in the Boston University Journalism program. This story is a partnership between the Times-Free Press and the Boston University Journalism program.