Uber and Lyft are facing up to 1,000 lawsuits alleging that drivers have sexually assaulted or harassed passengers, sometimes even when the passengers were sleeping.

• A California law firm plans to file up to 1,000 sexual harassment lawsuits against Uber and Lyft, KPIX reported.

• Lawyers for Levin Simes Abrams said some of the cases involve reports of motorists attacking sleeping women.

• The company is calling for the mandatory installation of surveillance cameras in cars to prevent attacks.

• For more stories, visit Insider’s business page.

Nearly 1,000 individual lawsuits could be filed against Uber and Lyft alleging that drivers sexually assaulted and harassed passengers, lawyers at the law firm Levin Simes Abrams told KPIX on Wednesday.

The San Francisco-based law firm recently filed 85 lawsuits against Uber, most of them in San Francisco County Superior Court, with 321 cases still pending, and filed more than 20 lawsuits against Lyft, with 517 cases still pending, attorneys told KPIX.

About a third of these cases involve California residents, law firm partners Rachel Abrams and Laurel Simes told KRON in a separate interview on Wednesday.

Abrams and Simes told KRON that the 85 cases filed against Uber would not be consolidated into a class action lawsuit because the details and severity of each case differ significantly.

The lawyers told KRON that hundreds of women came forward with claims of sexual assault and harassment after the firm took on its first case against Uber in 2019. In some cases, the women claimed drivers attacked them while they were sleeping or drunk, the lawyers said.

Firm attorney Meghan McCormick said in an interview with KPIX that some drivers are accused of ending rides early on the app “so that it looks to any observer or to Uber like they did exactly what they were supposed to do.” They then drive the passenger “to a deserted location,” she said.

Abrams told KPIX that 99% of the attacks “could be prevented if there was a camera.”

The ride-sharing apps announced in a joint statement in March that they would share data about drivers who had been banned from their platforms due to “serious safety incidents,” including sexual assault and physical assault resulting in death.

In 2019, Uber released its first safety report, which said there were 3,045 reports of sexual assaults across 2.3 billion rides on its U.S. platform between 2017 and 2018.

An Uber spokesperson said in a statement to Insider: “We remain committed to supporting victims and helping to stop sexual violence by collaborating with experts, developing groundbreaking technical safety solutions, and setting standards for transparency and accountability.”

A Lyft spokesperson told Insider: “What these women describe is something no one should ever have to endure. Everyone deserves the opportunity to move safely in the world, but women still face disproportionate risks. We recognize these risks, which is why we work tirelessly to build safety into every aspect of our work. That means we continually invest in new features and policies to keep our riders and drivers safe.”

Levin Simes Abrams did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider