A Texas woman is seeking $1 million in an Uber lawsuit claiming she was the victim of sexual assault by an Uber driver in January 2018.

The Galveston County woman filed the lawsuit alleging sexual assault, negligence and other counts.

According to Chron.com, the woman and a male friend took an Uber after they had been out drinking in Houston on Jan. 5, 2018. When the male friend left the car to pick up a fast-food order, Uber driver David Lane allegedly drove away and sexually assaulted her in an abandoned parking lot.

Upon walking out of the fast-food restaurant and not finding his ride, the male friend tried contacting Lane several times, but could not reach him, says the lawsuit. The Uber driver eventually allowed the woman to go free, and she and her friend reported the sexual assault to the Houston Police Department, according to court records.

Sexual Assault by an Uber Driver from Texas Who Had Criminal Past

The Uber sexual assault lawsuit contends Uber was negligent and failed to properly hire, train and supervise its drivers. The company also allegedly did not conduct a thorough employee background check on drivers, and as a result, failed to enforce safety policies to screen Uber drivers.

Lane has convictions for drug possession in 1998, theft in 2002, and tampering with a government record in 2005.

Woman Sexually Assaulted Second Time Using Uber

Another Texas woman alleges she was drugged and sexually assaulted by an Uber driver who picked her up at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport last February. She said it was only her second time to use the app.

Laci H. told a local Dallas CBS affiliate her Uber driver told her to sit in the front seat “for security reasons” and she placed her coffee cup in the center console. When she bent down to rearrange her bags, she believes he drugged her coffee.

Laci became disoriented, and ended up in the back seat but couldn’t recall how she got there. She knew the driver had been groping her. He finally let her out at a gas station where she asked a gas station employee to go to the car and collect her things because she didn’t want to get back in the car. She called her husband and the police, who took a report.

It wasn’t until days later when she found a piece of a condom that she knew she had been a victim of serious sexual assault by an Uber driver.

Uber recently released a safety review that for the first time, provided a number of reported alleged sexual assaults by company drivers. During 2017 and 2018, Uber received 5,981 serious sexual assault allegations in the U.S.

According to the Uber report, the company received advice from experts at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) and the Urban Institute to create five sexual assault classifications that describe different unwanted sexual advances. These are the categories and number of reports:

• Non-consensual Kissing of a Non-sexual Body Part reported in one of every 2 million trips
• Attempted Non-consensual Sexual Penetration reported in one of every 4 million completed trips, and includes reports ranging from attempted removal of clothing to incomplete reports due to memory loss
• Instances of Non-consensual Touching of a Sexual Body Part reported in one out of every 800,000 trips
• Non-consensual kissing of a Sexual Body Part reported in one of every 3 million trips
• Non-consensual Sexual Penetration is the most serious sexual assault category and was reported in one out of 5 million trips in the U.S.

Uber said it will release such a safety report every two years.

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.