Most people do not think twice before getting into an Uber.
You open the app, confirm your ride, and trust that the system works the way it is supposed to. However, the reason Uber is now introducing its Women Preferences feature is not about convenience.
It is about a problem that has not gone away.
Uber’s decision to expand Women Preferences, a feature that allows women riders and drivers to match with each other, comes after sealed court records revealed the company received a report of sexual assault or misconduct in the United States almost every eight minutes between 2017 and 2022. That is not a statistic from a plaintiff’s lawyer. It comes from Uber’s own internal data, uncovered through litigation.
This is not just a new option in the app. It is a response to a crisis the company has been navigating for years.
That raises a much more important question.
If new safety features are still being introduced now, what does that say about the effectiveness of the ones that already existed?
If you or someone you care about has been harmed during a rideshare trip, understanding your legal rights matters. Blume Forte Attorneys at Law handles complex injury claims involving rideshare liability. Contact our firm today to discuss your situation and protect your next steps.
Uber Women-Only Feature NJ: What Problem Is Uber Actually Trying To Solve?
This feature did not appear out of nowhere.
Between 2017 and 2022, Uber received 400,181 reports of sexual assault or sexual misconduct across the United States, a figure revealed through sealed court documents in ongoing litigation. Uber publicly disclosed only 12,522 ‘serious’ incidents in its safety reports, a gap of nearly 388,000 cases.
The same court records showed that Uber possessed this information internally for years while its public disclosures told a very different story.
Women Preferences launched as a pilot in five cities in August 2025, expanded to 60 U.S. cities by the end of that year, and went nationwide on March 9, 2026. It is now available in New York, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Atlanta, Austin, and cities throughout the New Jersey metro area.
“Women asked for more choice, and we built it with Women Preferences,” said Brooke Anderson, Uber’s Head of Product Communications at launch. “This feature exists because women told us it should.”
From both a rider safety and legal perspective, the timing of that statement matters.
When a company has internal data showing the true scale of assault on its platform and waits years to act on it, the questions that arise are not just about safety. They are about what was known, when it was known, and what steps were taken in the meantime.
Uber Safety Features New Jersey: Do New Options Actually Reduce Risk?
On the surface, Women Preferences makes sense.
Giving riders the ability to choose a driver they may feel more comfortable with can reduce certain concerns. Uber has framed Women Preferences as a way to improve comfort and control, and in many markets where it has operated globally, the response has been significant. More than 230 million trips have already been completed using Women Preferences worldwide, and the feature is now active for drivers in over 40 countries and riders in seven.
However, safety and comfort are not always the same thing.
Uber already provides:
- GPS tracking for every trip
- Emergency assistance within the app
- Ride-sharing with trusted contacts
- Driver screening processes
- RideCheck technology, which flags trips that deviate from expected routes
And yet, new features are still being added.
In February 2026, just weeks before Women Preferences went nationwide, Uber also announced plans to amend its background check policy. For the first time, anyone convicted of violent felonies, sexual offenses, and child or elder abuse was permanently barred from driving on the platform.
Read that again carefully: those protections were not in place before February 2026.
That tells you something critical. The system is still being built. A new option may help some riders feel more secure, but it does not eliminate the underlying reality that rideshare passengers are entering a private vehicle with someone they do not know and that the platform’s safeguards have had documented, provable gaps.
Rideshare Safety Risks NJ: What Dangers Still Exist For Passengers?
Even with expanded safety tools, certain risks remain part of the rideshare experience.
Passengers rely on:
- The platform’s screening process
- The driver’s behavior in the moment
- The company’s ability to monitor and respond in real time
When something goes wrong, it often happens quickly.
Uber’s own published safety reports confirm that sexual assault incidents, including the most serious categories, have occurred consistently across the platform even as new safeguards were introduced. The fact that Uber has published multiple safety reports, and continues to update its policies in response, makes clear that these are not isolated incidents. They reflect an ongoing pattern the company is still working to address.
Common risks that Women Preferences still does not address include:
- Unsafe or reckless driving
- Driver misconduct or assault during a matched ride
- Unexpected route changes
- Accidents caused by other vehicles
- Situations where in-app tools are unavailable or not used in time
Women Preferences can reduce the likelihood of gender-based harm in specific circumstances. It cannot eliminate the broader exposure that comes with entering a private vehicle with a stranger whose full history the platform may not have vetted, and whose conduct, once the ride begins, is largely beyond the app’s control.
Uber Liability New Jersey: Who Is Responsible When Safety Systems Fall Short?
This is where things become more than just a safety issue.
They become a legal one.
If a rideshare incident occurs in New Jersey, liability may involve:
- The Uber driver directly responsible for the harm
- Another driver involved in a collision
- Uber as a company, based on its duty of care and what it knew prior to the incident
- Multiple layers of insurance coverage, including Uber’s commercial policy
But here is where Women Preferences becomes especially relevant from a legal standpoint.
Uber’s internal data, including the 400,181 reports and the disparity between public disclosures and sealed court records, is now part of the public record through litigation. That record creates a documented history of known risk.
In future claims, that history raises important questions:
- Did Uber know about the elevated risk facing women passengers?
- Were earlier safeguards sufficient given what internal data showed?
- Were the February 2026 background check changes and March 2026 Women Preferences rollout acknowledgments that prior protections had failed?
When a company introduces sweeping new safety measures at the same moment it is facing mounting legal scrutiny, those measures can become evidence of what was missing before. That is not speculation. It is how product liability and negligence law works.
Passenger Rights After Uber Incident NJ: What Should You Do If You Are Harmed?
After a rideshare incident, many people want to move on quickly.
However, the steps you take immediately after can shape what happens next. And with rideshare cases, that window moves fast.
Focus on:
- Getting medical attention right away, even when injuries are not immediately visible
- Saving all trip details from the app, including driver information, route data, and timestamps
- Documenting injuries, surroundings, and any witnesses as thoroughly as possible
- Avoiding early statements to insurance companies or adjusters without legal guidance
- Contacting an attorney before accepting any settlement offer
Rideshare cases involve layered liability structures and insurance companies whose primary interest is minimizing payouts. Uber’s commercial policy, the driver’s personal policy, and any third-party coverage may all be in play simultaneously. Protecting your position early, before facts become harder to establish, can make a significant difference in the outcome.
New Uber Safety Features: Why Continued Changes Raise Bigger Questions
Uber continues to introduce features such as:
- Real-time ride monitoring through RideCheck
- Emergency assistance tools built into the app
- Audio recording options in select markets
- Amended background check standards (February 2026)
- Nationwide gender-based ride matching through Women Preferences (March 2026)
Each update is presented as progress. And in many ways, it is.
But each update also reflects something else: the prior version of the platform was not safe enough.
The New York Times investigation that revealed the “every eight minutes” statistic, based on Uber’s own internal records, showed the scale of what was happening while those earlier tools were already in place. The gap between 12,522 publicly reported “serious” incidents and 100,000-plus serious incidents in sealed court documents is not a rounding error. It is a fundamental question about corporate transparency and accountability.
For riders, that means staying aware. For legal claims, it means something more: a documented, timestamped record of what Uber knew, what it disclosed, and how long it waited before acting, all of which may be examined when something goes wrong.
New Jersey Uber Accident Lawyer Perspective: How This Feature Could Impact Future Claims
From a legal standpoint, changes like the Women Preferences rollout can shift how cases are evaluated, particularly in light of the underlying data that preceded them.
When a company:
- Possessed internal data on the true scale of sexual misconduct on its platform years before making meaningful corrective changes
- Publicly underreports serious incidents by a ratio of nearly 8 to 1
- Introduces sweeping new safety measures years after that data existed
- Amends background check policies to close gaps that arguably should have been closed sooner
…it creates a legal record that may influence how responsibility is assessed in future claims.
In litigation, questions may include:
- Were prior safety measures adequate given what Uber’s internal data showed at the time?
- Were the risks facing women passengers foreseeable and for how long before Women Preferences was introduced?
- Does the multi-year delay between known risk and corrective action support a negligence finding?
- Did Uber’s public safety reports misrepresent the true scale of the risk?
These are not abstract legal theories. They are the kinds of questions that determine liability in serious injury cases, and in a landscape where Uber’s own sealed records are now entering the public domain, the answers may look very different than they did just a few years ago.
Uber Women-Only Feature NJ: What Should Riders Take Away From This?
Women Preferences is a step forward in one sense.
But it is not a complete solution, nor is it an admission-free one. Uber is simultaneously defending against a class-action lawsuit filed in November 2025 by two California male drivers who allege the feature violates California’s Unruh Act by limiting their access to ride requests. The company is rolling out new protections for one group of riders while navigating discrimination claims from another.
That tension reflects something important: rideshare safety is still evolving, and the platform’s obligations to its users are still being defined in courtrooms, regulatory agencies, and in the app itself.
For riders in New Jersey, that means:
- Using every available safety tool, including Women Preferences if you are eligible
- Staying aware of route deviations, driver behavior, and your surroundings
- Understanding that a safety feature’s existence does not eliminate the risk it was created to address
- Knowing your legal rights if something does go wrong
Convenience should never replace caution. And caution should never replace accountability.
Frequently Asked Questions About Uber Safety And Liability In New Jersey
What is Uber’s Women Preferences feature?
It allows women riders to request a trip with a female driver and allows women drivers to prioritize female passengers. The feature went nationwide on March 9, 2026, after an August 2025 pilot in five cities. If no female driver is available within an acceptable wait time, riders can opt for a standard match.
Does this feature eliminate safety risks?
No. Women Preferences reduces specific concerns related to gender-based matching, but it does not address reckless driving, accidents, misconduct during matched rides, or situations where the feature is unavailable. Uber’s own data shows that risks remain even within the platform’s existing safeguard framework.
Who is liable in an Uber-related incident in New Jersey?
Liability may involve the driver, Uber as a company, or other parties depending on the circumstances. Rideshare cases typically involve multiple layers of insurance and legal responsibility. An attorney can help identify all potentially liable parties.
Why is Uber still adding safety features if existing ones worked?
The addition of Women Preferences and the February 2026 background check changes reflect ongoing acknowledgment that prior measures were insufficient. Sealed court records showing 400,181 misconduct reports between 2017 and 2022 versus the 12,522 “serious” incidents Uber publicly reported illustrate the scale of what existing safeguards failed to prevent.
Can I file a claim after a rideshare injury in New Jersey?
Yes. If negligence played a role, whether by the driver, by Uber’s screening processes, or by a failure of the platform’s safety systems, you may be able to pursue compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other damages.
Uber Women-Only Feature: What Should You Do If Safety Still Fails?
The introduction of Women Preferences, and the data that preceded it, makes one thing clear.
Safety remains a concern on rideshare platforms, and the gap between what companies publicly disclose and what internal records reveal can be significant. New tools improve the experience for some riders. They do not replace accountability when something goes wrong.
If you or someone you care about has been injured during a rideshare trip in New Jersey, you deserve to understand your rights fully and completely. These situations are not simply accidents. They may involve foreseeable risks, documented corporate knowledge, and layers of legal responsibility that are not always visible from the surface.
Blume Forte Attorneys at Law represents individuals across New Jersey in complex injury claims, including those involving rideshare companies, layered liability, and serious harm.
If safety systems failed to protect you, now is the time to take the next step.
Contact Blume Forte Attorneys at Law today to discuss your situation and protect your rights.
Disclaimer: This blog is intended for informational purposes only and does not establish an attorney-client relationship. It should not be considered as legal advice. For personalized legal assistance, please consult our team directly.
