Every day millions of you put your trust in Uber to get to your destination, meeting with friends, job interviews, and to connect with the best local food options. It’s not a trust we take lightly.

Our new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has made safety a top priority for Uber. With about 15 million trips happening on the Uber app each day, we are putting safety at the heart of everything we do. That means working to raise the bar on safety and developing innovative products that aim to increase transparency, accountability and peace of mind for all users on the app.

Today we’re proud to begin rolling out new safety features in South Africa, doubling down on safety in our app and helping you stay safe and connected throughout your journeys.

Here is a snapshot of the new rider, driver and deliver-partner Safety Toolkit features you’ll be able to view in your app very soon:

Safety Toolkit

We’ve updated both our rider and driver-partner apps with safety in mind, locating all things safety in one central place and making it accessible directly from the rider home screen or Uber driver-partner and Uber Eats delivery-partners map during each trip. Over the coming weeks, riders and drivers will begin to see a ‘shield’ icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the map screen during a trip. With a simple tap, one can access the safety toolkit.

Safety Centre: From the Safety Centre, riders can learn more about safety at Uber in one central location in the app – from driver background checks, insurance protections, to details on how to contact our 24/7 support. 

Emergency assistance button: This features allows riders, drivers  and deliver-partners to call for assistance from a third party supplier who can dispatch private emergency services as well as private security response services if needed directly from the app.

If ever faced with an emergency situation, we want to help you get the help you need. Before placing a call we’ll provide you with useful information, such as your real-time GPS location (both on a map and as an address), car make and model, and license plate so these can easily be shared with the local operator.

Trusted Contacts & Share Trip: It’s now even easier for riders and driver-partners to keep their loved ones in the loop. Riders can select up to five friends and family members as Trusted Contacts and choose to be prompted to share trip details with them during every ride with a single tap. Drivers who use our app already can share their whereabouts and trip status all right from the shield icon on the map with ‘Share Trip’.

Speed Alerts: Experts say that letting people know how fast they’re going, relative to the speed limit, can help them travel at safer speeds. The Uber app brings this feature in the app and right on the map, so that drivers and delivery partners always know the speed limit. Drivers are shown their speed in relation to the limit. They’ve told us through internal user research that this feature helps keep them safe on the road.

When it comes to safety, our work is never done. Uber has a responsibility to help keep people safe, and it’s one we take seriously. We want you to have peace of mind when you use Uber, and hope these new features make it clear that we’ve got your back.