Last week, a student from The University of South Carolina, Samantha Josephson, was murdered after she mistook a similar car for her Uber rideshare service after a night out. Every time I tell my family that I’m taking an Uber or another rideshare service, this is their worst fear and now, it has finally been realized. This is a tragic loss for the family of this student but also for college students as a whole. How do we know that the next time we get into a rideshare that we will 100 percent arrive at our destination? Sadly, there really isn’t any guarantee. There are some things in this case that we were able to learn from but there are also still some grey areas. The university she attended came up with a “what’s my name” campaign to encourage students to ask their rideshare drivers to confirm they have the right car before getting in and that’s great but what if you forget? What if you are inebriated or in a rush and just think okay here’s a car and the driver says ‘hop in.” Would anything instantly stop you if you knew you called a rideshare? For most, that answer might be no. I was raised to be an extremely cautious person and every time I call a rideshare I look at the picture and the license plate that the app provides and compare it to the car that arrives. I’ve caught myself multiple times walking all the way around the car to make sure that the license plate matched. Sometimes I catch myself doing this and I’m thinking “just hop in, stop being so ridiculous, it’s the right one” but the fear that it isn’t the right car or it isn’t the right person driving is too strong to ignore.
The reason these apps were created was to help those without the ability to drive their car or don’t own a car, to get to their destinations with as little hassle as possible but now, that is all up in the air. For college students and many young adults, parents even preach rideshare as part of the don’t drink and drive speech. Just “call an Uber and get home safe” they say. Parents and students alike are putting a lot of trust in these apps and with this story, the floodgates have been opened. Every time I get in one, I bet I’m going to be thinking of Josephson and, to some degree, so will the drivers, well at least the ones who mean no ill will. I’ve met plenty of drivers who are parents themselves or have this as a side way to earn an income and this incident jeopardizes that. In the aftermath of this murder these apps are quickly coming up with more security and other measures to ensure the safest drive for their customers which is definitely the right move. My only hope is that these changes in safety don’t come to little or don’t come to late.
