Uber Is Finally Making It Easier for Riders to Avoid Male Drivers

For women in the U.S., getting a ride with a woman driver on Uber is about to get easier.

On Wednesday, Uber announced that it’s rolling out new features that will give women riders the option to request women drivers and vice versa.

“Across the US, women riders and drivers have told us they want the option to be matched with other women on trips,” said Uber vice president of U.S. and Canada operations Camiel Irving in a press release. “We’ve heard them — and now we’re introducing new ways to give them even more control over how they ride and drive.”

The company said the new preference options will be piloted in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Detroit over the next few weeks.

Here’s how they work. When requesting an on-demand ride, women users will see a new “Women Drivers” option that will match them with a women driver. However, if the wait for a woman driver is too long, they can still switch to the fastest available pickup. Riders can also reserve rides in advance with a woman driver for added certainty, and even toggle a preference in their app settings to increase the chances of being matched with a woman driver, although it’s not guaranteed.

Meanwhile, drivers are also getting a similar feature. Women Uber drivers will be able to toggle a “Women Rider Preference” in their app settings, allowing them to prioritize trip requests from women. They can turn off the setting at any time if they want to resume accepting rides from all users.

Uber first introduced these features in Saudi Arabia in 2019, after the country granted women the legal right to drive in 2018. Following an overwhelmingly positive response, the features have since expanded to 40 countries, including France, Mexico, Canada, Germany, and India.

Uber said making these features reliable required “thoughtful design.” Since most Uber drivers are men, the company worked to ensure this feature was usable in different locations around the world. The features have been tested and refined in different regions, adapting to real-world rider and driver behaviors.

For years, both Uber and its rival Lyft have faced criticism—and lawsuits—for not doing enough to address sexual assault on their platforms. According to Uber’s own safety report, the company received 2,717 reports of sexual assault incidents in the U.S. between 2021 and 2022.

Ahead of the game, Lyft introduced a similar feature for women and non-binary riders in 2023.