A new Uber app feature now allows users to connect to 911 in an emergency at the tap of a button.
The ride-hailing company revealed the safety feature, which includes advanced settings for several test markets that enabled automatic location sharing to 911 dispatchers, TechCrunch noted.
A safety icon has been included in the Uber app, allowing the user to easily contact 911 and communicate their location with dispatch, but in some cities Uber has taken it a step further by integrating RapidSOS into the feature.
This means that for residents in Denver, Colorado; Charleston, South Carolina; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Naples, Florida; Tri-Cities, Tennessee; and Louisville, Kentucky, the app will automatically share the user's name, location and specific details about the Uber vehicle to 911 when the button is tapped, Today reported.
"We are talking to our riders and drivers and we know that if they're ever in an emergency situation, they want help fast," said Sachin Kansal, Uber's director of product management.
Kansal told TechCrunch that Uber was in discussion with several other cities to launch the feature but that it boiled down to the "readiness of cities" and "how fast some of them were able to move in terms of training agents and testing functionality."
While Uber offers thousands of lifts to people across the world without incident, there have been situations in which the safety of customers has been compromised.
In 2014, Uber taxi driver Shiv Kumar Yadav was arrested on allegations of raping a young female passenger in India.
That same year a San Francisco bartender was hospitalized for several days after an Uber driver attacked him with a hammer. In a separate incident, San Francisco Uber driver Daveea Whitmire was charged with misdemeanor assault after he allegedly hit a passenger in the head and elbowed him in the chest.
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