I fell for Uber’s safe image because I didn’t – and still don’t – have better options

End game for Uber?
Uber is easy, not safe
Uber banned in Delhi, but it may still go scot free

Screaming headlines like the above have been flooding my news feeds ever since the case of an Uber driver raping a young woman in Delhi came out. Uber-bashing is the order of the day, so sensational headlines are no surprise. But as a working woman in India, who has lately been counting on Uber for a safe commute, the Delhi rape and its aftermath are outrageous on multiple levels.

The horrific crime itself is a hard slap for me and others who happily lowered our guards when Uber arrived in India promising a safe, comfortable, and reliable taxi service. Who were we kidding really?

Every year, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) publishes statistics on rape and other sexual offences against women. In 2013, 309,546 crimes against women were reported to the police in India, compared to 244,270 in 2012. Besides rape, this number includes other crimes like kidnapping, sexual harassment, trafficking, and molestation. Counting just rapes, the number rose by 35.2 percent to 33,707 in 2013 – with Delhi reporting 1,441 rapes in 2013. That is four rapes reported everyday. As most rapes go unreported, the actual numbers will be much higher.

And yesterday, a day after the news about the rape broke, Uber was banned in Delhi. The company has been blacklisted and is no longer permitted to provide any transport service in Delhi. This swift ban by Indian authorities, notorious for their lackadaisical approach to crimes against women, is a typical knee-jerk attempt to land the blame for the horrific crime squarely on the foreign player – who did play a part in the crime by failing to conduct due diligence before onboarding the driver to its app.

Mea culpa. It’s my fault

I live in Bangalore, a relatively safer city in the south of India. Last year, Bangalore registered 80 rapes, while Mumbai, which is known to be more women-friendly, recorded 391 rapes. These numbers are much, much lower than Delhi’s, but that doesn’t really make me feel any bit safer.

Before Uber launched in Bangalore – its first Indian city – evenings were a bad time for working women like me. My newspaper office was located in the center of the city but getting an auto rickshaw ride – the cheaper alternative to taxis – was next to impossible. Almost always, the drivers would demand to be paid one-and-a-half times the regular fare or flatly refuse to go to a route that was different from where they stayed or wanted to go. You had to haggle, plead, and cajole them into giving you a ride. And this was many times worse if you happened to be outside a pub, restaurant, or mall.

Once you reached your destination, there was usually another unpleasantness waiting as the fare would be much higher than expected as most auto rickshaw meters are rigged. And, heaven forbid, if you were to protest over it you would not only hear the choicest of abuse but even feel physically vulnerable.

Hailing a cab wasn’t a much better option either as Ola, Meru cabs, and other such taxi apps didn’t have a sufficient supply of taxis then. Nor were they reliable or wallet-friendly. Many a time, you felt more unsafe in a closed cab than in an open auto rickshaw.

I have experienced all the aforementioned tribulations countless times, and have seen or heard my women friends who went through worse harassment.

That was why, when Uber came, women like me welcomed it wholeheartedly. All of a sudden, we didn’t have to cower before rude auto rickshaw drivers. We didn’t have to swallow our pride and plead with strangers to go to a movie hall or accompany us home. We suddenly had an option on our mobile phone, which would get us a comfortable cab (or a swanky one if we shell out more cash), a courteous driver, and reliable ride.

The GPS-enabled app, which tracks the cab all through the ride, made me feel safer. The ride almost always came at a price lower than expected. I remember my friends in Chennai saying they were jealous because Uber hadn’t launched operations there until February this year.