Photo: ChinaDaily
Last week, for the second time this year, a second passenger on a Didi Chuxing ride was murdered. The Beijing-based company, the largest in the country, has shut down its Hitch service following the incident, pending an internal investigation.
Ditch is a web-based service, which offers ride-sharing at no cost on the premise that both driver and passenger go in the same direction. A 20-year-old woman was raped and murdered by her driver, and her body was dumped down a cliff.
Prior to the murder, the woman had made contact with her family and expressed concern. One hour later, she could no longer be reached – but Didi failed to act on family members’ desire to track down the driver and told them to go to the police instead.
Though a spokesperson for the company said that the driver had met all the requirements for being accepted on the platform (he had no priors, had submitted valid documentation and had passed a facial recognition test), they also admitted they failed to act on a previous complaint about him.
Just one day before the murder, another woman had lodged a complaint against the driver, saying he’d taken her to an isolated location, insisted that she sit in front with him and followed her after she’d gotten out of the vehicle. Didi did nothing in terms of following up the complaint, which effectively let the driver back on the road, free to do the same – and worse – to another woman.
The Chinese government is now cracking down on ride-sharing companies, NDTV reports. Stricter measures to ensure passenger safety will be implemented and, if need be, these firms will be banned if they fail to comply.
“If a company is not compliant and self-disciplined, and takes its passengers' lives as a game, the public will vote with their feet and the government will not just stand by,” the Transport Ministry says in a statement on its website.
“The National Development and Reform Commission said that various government departments would push to improve overall governance of operators and would expand the use of a fledgling social credit system across the transport sector,” NDTV notes.
Shortly after Didi shut down the Hitch service (all its other services are still running), rival AutoNavi Maps also shut down its carpooling service citing “passenger safety” as reason.
Prior to the murder, the woman had made contact with her family and expressed concern. One hour later, she could no longer be reached – but Didi failed to act on family members’ desire to track down the driver and told them to go to the police instead.
Though a spokesperson for the company said that the driver had met all the requirements for being accepted on the platform (he had no priors, had submitted valid documentation and had passed a facial recognition test), they also admitted they failed to act on a previous complaint about him.
Just one day before the murder, another woman had lodged a complaint against the driver, saying he’d taken her to an isolated location, insisted that she sit in front with him and followed her after she’d gotten out of the vehicle. Didi did nothing in terms of following up the complaint, which effectively let the driver back on the road, free to do the same – and worse – to another woman.
The Chinese government is now cracking down on ride-sharing companies, NDTV reports. Stricter measures to ensure passenger safety will be implemented and, if need be, these firms will be banned if they fail to comply.
“If a company is not compliant and self-disciplined, and takes its passengers' lives as a game, the public will vote with their feet and the government will not just stand by,” the Transport Ministry says in a statement on its website.
“The National Development and Reform Commission said that various government departments would push to improve overall governance of operators and would expand the use of a fledgling social credit system across the transport sector,” NDTV notes.
Shortly after Didi shut down the Hitch service (all its other services are still running), rival AutoNavi Maps also shut down its carpooling service citing “passenger safety” as reason.
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