The alleged rape of an Uber passenger by her driver in New Delhi on Friday and his arrest over the weekend is another sad chapter in India’s ongoing battle with violence against women. Official statistics suggest the country witnessed 25,000 rapes in 2012, survey evidence suggests numbers perhaps tenfold higher. (In an area where data is incredibly unreliable especially when comparing across countries, these numbers are about one-tenth surveyed and official rates of rape in the U.S. That may reflect lower violence but certainly also involves different attitudes to reporting and the definition of the crime.)
The government’s response to the incident was to immediately ban Uber operations in Delhi with immediate effect. For all that is a welcome sign of political commitment to tackle violence, it doesn’t make sense. The police in India have been accused of multiple rapes, and tourists have been raped on a train and in a traditional Delhi taxi this year—the government has not shut down the police force, the railways and traditional taxi services. It has singled out Uber, perhaps more because it is high-profile and politically weak than because of any risks that riders may face.
In fact, there are good reasons to think that Uber can provide a safer experience than India’s traditional transportation options. Unlike in the vast majority of rapes in the country, the alleged perpetrator in the Uber case was arrested within hours of the incident. That’s not a surprise: The way Uber works guarantees that there was considerable information available on the suspect. The company provided police with the name, age and photo of the driver, along with his bank verified address, car details and trip and route data. That’s a much higher level of knowledge than either passengers or companies have when they hail a cab off the street.
That knowledge base, and Uber’s willingness to cooperate swiftly with authorities, is probably a more reliable deterrent to crime than the system of enhanced background checks now being considered by the New Delhi authorities. Transportation regulation in the country is notoriously weak. In one study, researchers who independently rated drivers’ ability to follow the rules of the road after they had taken the official driving test in New Delhi found that those who had passed drove no better than those who failed. But drivers who were given an incentive to hire agents to ‘facilitate’ their test passed far more frequently than those given free driving lessons before the driving exam.
That study suggests that the official driving test measured ability to pay off drive test examiners rather than the ability to drive a car safely. If the authorities can’t ensure people that licenses are only conferred on competent drivers, is there really any reason to think their background checks would be more successful?
Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and author of The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest is Great for the West.
