Why Women-Only Transportation Isn’t The Answer

By Elena Zhang

It’s three in the morning, and you wait alone on a darkened street corner. A car pulls up. You get in. The driver, a man, leers at you, and you’re afraid. You wish you could trust that this stranger will get you home safely, but you just can’t be sure.

This is the kind of scenario that prompted Michael Pelletz to create SafeHer, a ridesharing service in Boston “driven by women, exclusively for women.” Through his own experiences as an Uber driver, Pelletz became aware of the potential dangers both drivers and passengers face when using current ridesharing services, and realized that even his own wife was wary of using Uber out of concern for her safety.

Indeed, there have been far too many examples of women being harassed when using a ridesharing service, with Buzzfeed reporting that as many as 170 sexual assault complaints were filed with Uber between December 2012 and August 2015.

Pelletz’s vision for SafeHer, which launched in April, is to be an alternative to Uber and Lyft, placing the safety of women and children as the company’s number one priority.

SafeHer isn’t the only transportation service that’s shifting toward a “women-only” mentality. In New York, a cab service called SheTaxis offers female drivers for women who aren’t comfortable…