Rideshare Safety Statistics: What the Latest Lyft Report Reveals About Injuries and Fatalities

If you ride with Lyft in Oklahoma, you’ve likely wondered how risky it is—even if you’ve never been in an accident. Lyft’s most recent Safety Transparency Report is the main public source that comes into play here, providing in-depth information that drivers and riders can use.

What happens if you are involved in a ridesharing accident? It’s time to talk to a car accident attorney near you. Contact Cunningham & Mears to set up a consultation with our team now.

What Lyft looks at in its safety reporting

The latest safety report from Lyft was published in July 2024 and is referenced in Lyft’s 2024 Sustainability & Impact Report. Lyft tracks incidents in several different categories, including: motor vehicle fatalities, fatal physical assaults, and five separate categories of sexual assault. They track any incidents that are reported to them by law enforcement, reported on the news, or reported on social media.

The company notes that reported incidents are rare in comparison to the total number of rides completed on the platform, but they acknowledge that even one of these incidents is too many. Safety incidents occurred in approximately 0.0002% of rides.

It’s important to remember, as you review this data, that this is a small slice of data. Lyft’s report excludes non-fatal motor-vehicle crashes and non-fatal physical assaults. This report doesn’t include any motor vehicle accidents resulting in non-fatal injuries, so you’re really only getting a peek at Lyft’s safety data from this.

Key findings from the Lyft report

In short, Lyft’s data is not exactly promising. Fatalities, both from crashes and assaults, are up. On the plus side, though, serious sexual assaults are down.

This data covers the period from 2020 to 2022. During this time, there were 111 motor vehicle fatalities, a 31% increase in incident frequency rate from the last Lyft safety report, and a 14% in fatality rate per 100 million miles traveled. There were also 23 fatal physical assaults, a shocking 185% increase from the previous report.

On the sexual assault side of the data, there were 2,651 instances of the five categories they tracked. This is a 21% decrease in the incident frequency rate. However, we still can’t downplay these statistics—every single one of those sexual assaults reflects a traumatized victim who will likely carry that trauma with them for the rest of their lives.

Comparing Lyft to Uber and national traffic statistics

While the data may not be as positive as Lyft or its travelers hoped for, it does have its bright spots. When looking at fatal accident numbers, you can’t just compare Lyft in the current reporting period to Lyft in the previous reporting period. You should also compare it to drivers in general, because many people would end up driving themselves if Lyft were not an option. During the time period studied, the fatality rate per 100 million miles traveled ranged from 0.68 to 1.02 for Lyft. The rate for all vehicle travel was rated from 1.33 to 1.38 during this same time frame, so Lyft’s numbers were better than those of all drivers.

When looking at fatal assaults, Lyft found that violent crime in general increased during this time period, with the U.S. experiencing the highest increase in homicides ever recorded in 2020. This epidemic affected Lyft as well, with carjackings and mask policies serving as vectors for fatal assaults.

Let’s zoom out and compare Lyft’s safety to Uber’s. Unfortunately, Uber doesn’t use the same timeframes for its reports, so the years in question are broken up into 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 reports. In 2019-2020, Uber had 101 traffic fatalities and a rate per 100 million miles about half of the national average—0.62. From 2021 to 2022, Uber had 153 traffic fatalities and a rate per 100 million miles that was lower than the national average but significantly higher than Uber’s own rate from 2019-2020, 0.87.

From 2019 to 2020, Uber had 20 fatal assaults—an 18% increase from the previous reporting period. That number jumped to 36 from 2021 to 2022, indicating an 80% increase. While lower than the numbers reported by Lyft, the increase is still worrying.

What doesn’t the data tell us?

This data is national and is not broken down state-by-state. This is a real limitation if you want to zoom in on Oklahoma specifically. What we can do is look at the numbers in Oklahoma and see if they follow the same trends as rideshare data. In 2024, a review of Oklahoma fatal accident data found that numbers in 2023 had finally started to drop from pandemic highs. That indicates that Oklahoma likely saw the same unusual spike that rideshare companies experienced.

The data also doesn’t give us information about the most common types of car accidents—those that cause mild to severe, but not fatal, injuries. If any of us were to be involved in a car accident, it’s far more likely to be non-fatal than fatal, so having data on those types of rideshare accidents could be useful. As Lyft has not come out with a new safety report since mid-2024, it remains to be seen whether or not they have started tracking those accidents and if those collisions will change their hiring or safety protocols.

Injured in a rideshare accident? Let’s talk

At Cunningham & Mears, we know how frightening a rideshare accident can be—and how confusing it can be when you’re trying to seek compensation. We’re here to help you explore your next steps. Call us or get in touch online to start your accident claim now.