Five years ago I walked out of my gym, briefcase in hand, steps from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. An Uber I had requested cancelled at the exact moment I placed my bag in the boot. Seconds later my iPhone was gone — taken in a theft witnessed by the head of community policing, which made my subsequent case at Sandton Police Station unusually swift. I was calm. Beside me, a woman who had experienced the same crime was hyperventilating. The police turned to me. They engaged my expertise from lived experience, and a crime scene became an impromptu debrief.
Recently, within my professional network, an executive’s niece was allegedly raped in the Sandton precinct (South Africa) — uncomfortably close to where I was robbed years earlier. Same geography. Same vulnerability. Escalating severity. In trauma-informed practice we call this a pattern — not a coincidence. Patterns are systemic. They are preventable. And they demand a response that goes beyond incident reports and press statements.
Rideshare platforms like Uber deploy strangers to pick up strangers — often at night, often in isolation — and govern that relationship with a criminal background check. What that check almost never includes is a psychological health assessment. As a Trauma-informed care specialist, I can state with clinical confidence that sexual violence is rarely an isolated act of evil. It is the endpoint of untreated psychological distress: dysregulated nervous systems, unprocessed trauma, and the compounding weight of financial pressure and social isolation — conditions that define the daily reality of many gig economy workers. A driver working twelve-hour shifts with no colleague, no manager, and no mental health infrastructure is not a safe driver by default. He is an unmonitored one.
This is not an excuse. It is an indictment of every platform that profits from human proximity while refusing to invest in human wellbeing. Men’s Mental Health Month is not a communications exercise. It is a mandate for institutional action.
Consider the early morning window — 3AM to 5AM — when rideshare demand spikes among the most vulnerable: women leaving late shifts, travellers in unfamiliar areas, individuals whose usual support networks are asleep. It is precisely in this window that a cancelled ride becomes a weapon of opportunity. A driver who accepts a booking, makes visual contact with a passenger, assesses her level of vulnerability, and then cancels — only to follow, approach, or resurface moments later — is not malfunctioning. He is operating with intent. And the platform has no psychological framework to distinguish that driver from a legitimate one, because it never looked.
This is the architecture of harm that no background check captures. Criminal records reflect past convictions. They do not reveal escalating ideation, predatory behavioural rehearsal, or the psychological deterioration that precedes a first offence. By the time a driver appears in a database, a woman has already been violated. The system we are defending is, at its core, retrospective. We need one that is preventative.
Every public-facing man — every driver, every delivery rider, every security officer, every parking attendant — who holds even a moment of power over a woman in a vulnerable situation must be held to a higher standard of psychological accountability than we currently demand. Not because men are inherently dangerous. But because the ones who are, are indistinguishable from the ones who are not, until it is too late. That indistinguishability is a design flaw. And design flaws have designers who are responsible for them.
The consequences for drivers whose conduct endangers the public must also be restructured. Deactivation after an incident is the current standard. It is insufficient. A driver removed from Uber can register on Bolt within the hour. A man whose psychology is sufficiently disturbed to commit sexual violence against a passenger does not become safe the moment he is removed from one app. He becomes invisible. What is required is a coordinated, cross-platform psychological flagging system — managed independently, governed by mental health professionals, and mandated by transport regulation authorities — that prevents high-risk individuals from cycling through platforms undetected.
South Africa’s National Land Transport Act, the Road Traffic Management Corporation, and the emerging regulatory frameworks governing transport network companies all have a role to play here. This is not solely Uber’s problem to solve. It is a legislative gap that the Department of Transport must close — and close urgently. The same rigour applied to taxi operators, bus drivers, and airline pilots must be applied to every person who places a paying passenger in their vehicle. The mode of hailing does not reduce the duty of care.
Calls to action 4 Uber & all public-serving platforms
01
Driver mental health screenings every 90 to 120 days
Every active partner driver must undergo a structured psychological health screening at least once every 90 to 120 days — the same standard applied to pilots, medical professionals, and law enforcement. Screenings should assess stress load, emotional regulation, and trauma indicators, administered by qualified professionals under full confidentiality. Drivers who need support must be directed to resources, not deactivated. Platforms that resist this standard should be required by law to carry expanded civil liability for all passenger harm occurring on their network.
02
Trauma-informed onboarding in driver programme
Before completing their first trip, every driver should receive foundational training in emotional regulation, professional boundaries, and healthy masculinity. This is not about turning drivers into therapists. It is about equipping human beings for the emotional complexity of their work — and updating that training regularly with clinical expertise. The early morning hours, when vulnerability is highest and oversight lowest, must be explicitly addressed in that training as a context requiring heightened professional discipline and ethical conduct.
03
Confidential counselling access non-negotiable
Every rideshare and delivery platform must provide drivers with a confidential, stigma-free counselling line — available around the clock, in the languages of their markets. A platform that offers surge pricing but no mental health support has inverted its priorities. Financial pressure, road fatigue, relational breakdown, and accumulated stress do not disappear when a driver goes online. They escalate. A psychologically supported driver is a safer driver. That protects passengers, brand reputation, and legal liability — simultaneously and structurally.
04
Cross-platform psychological risk registry, survivor protocol
A coordinated, independently managed psychological risk registry — governed by mental health professionals and mandated by transport regulators — must prevent high-risk drivers from cycling between platforms undetected. Simultaneously, when a passenger is harmed, the platform’s first response must centre the survivor, not the legal team. A trauma-trained specialist must be the first point of contact, supporting the survivor through crisis response with dignity intact. A refund and a case number are not a trauma response. They are an insult dressed as administration.
The pattern I noticed five years ago — standing calm in a Sandton police station while a woman hyperventilated beside me — was a preview of a conversation this country was not yet ready to have. We are ready now. The cancelled ride, the isolated street, the early morning darkness — these are not random. They are conditions. And conditions can be changed. Passenger safety and driver wellbeing are not separate conversations. They have always been the same one. The next ride is already happening. Act now.
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Brand Nigeria! When the driver of your vehicle goes rogue