Uber is releasing a group of new safety features geared in direction of the driving power, along with freezing fake rider account names and piloting a front-facing video recording instrument to interchange a driver’s dashcam.
The safety choices observe a feedback period from drivers that Uber began this summer season season.
It appears to be like drivers have been having a troublesome time with fake particular person names. Uber, in its attempt to cease discrimination based mostly totally on someone’s title, has allowed riders to interchange their names throughout the app. The end result’s some clients modified their names to cartoon characters or “even offensive language,” which Uber talked about “may end up in troublesome pickups or uncomfortable circumstances for drivers.”
Uber will conduct a giant audit of rider account names and freeze any accounts with clearly fake names. Riders ought to change or validate their account names with Uber’s assist brokers to have their accounts unblocked, the company talked about.
Drivers might also have the flexibility to flag any fake or inappropriate names of their app’s Help half.
Uber will be growing its audio recording perform and piloting front-facing video recording. The ride-hail huge says in-app audio recording all through rides has helped it determine the right plan of motion after a safety incident, and it’s helped riders and drivers actually really feel safer when using the app. Uber has been piloting audio recording in three U.S. cities over the earlier 12 months and might now improve to six new U.S. cities subsequent month, along with Cincinnati, Nashville, Phoenix, Salt Lake Metropolis, San Antonio and Tucson.
The video recording trial, which might occur in Cincinnati, Louisville and New York Metropolis throughout the U.S. and Santos and João Pessoa in Brazil, will allow drivers to file video using the front-facing digital digital camera on their smartphone. The thought is to interchange an interior-facing dashcam with a inexpensive and less complicated to rearrange varied, and it’ll allow drivers to file every video and audio on every journey, the company talked about.
As with the audio recording perform, no one, along with the driving power, can entry the recording besides the driving power must share it with Uber to look out information in a safety-related incident, Uber talked about.
Uber moreover revealed some new road safety choices on Thursday. The company talked about its in-app navigation system will now counsel fewer left turns, which based mostly on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, result in 22% of crashes. The navigation might also alert drivers to “look forward to cross guests” when approaching an intersection with out a four-way stop.
