IF YOU’RE out and about in one of Britain’s cities today, International Women’s Day, and need to hail a cab to get home, be especially nice to your driver if she happens to be female.

She’s almost certainly had a rough day. 

It’s fair to say, however, that as chances go, encountering a female driver is one of the slimmest. That’s because most women end up leaving the profession due to safety concerns, because they’re paid less than men, and because the app-based companies they work for are doing nothing to protect them.

Cristina-Georgiana Ioanitescu, president of ADCU, the App Drivers and Couriers Union, works as a chauffeur, picking up diplomats and businessmen from Britain’s airports. 

“We estimate that women make up less than 1 per cent of our 10,000 members. Most of them don’t stay long, primarily because of the safety concerns. They’re on their own in the car and the app companies won’t let them have cameras, so it’s their word against the rider’s. And the companies always side with the riders.

“It’s also hard for them to make a decent living, because the highest-paying jobs are often at times women can’t typically work, because they have caring responsibilities, and need to work during the day, when the kids are at school.

“Another issue for women drivers is access to toilet facilities. The men have urinals, but there’s nothing for us,” says Ioanitescu. “We know of women who have developed UTIs because they have not been able to use a toilet all day. I myself got a £65 parking fine because I stopped for just a few seconds to use a hotel toilet. Long journeys are the worst. You have to accept them or you don’t get other jobs, but can end up stuck in traffic for hours, bursting for the loo. Not easy at the best of times, even worse if you’re pregnant, or on your period.”

Ioanitescu has been asked by a group of teenage passengers to pull up to buy condoms which they could then “all use together,” hassled for dates, and asked for underwear from male passengers of all ages. She got so sick of men asking to sit in the passenger seat, where they could reach over the gear stick and sexually assault her, that she upgraded her car to a larger seven-seater. “I thought they’d stop asking to sit in the passenger seat after that. But they didn’t,” she says, with a resigned grimace. 

Ioanitescu tells of members who have been propositioned for oral sex by riders, only to find themselves on the receiving end of a retaliatory complaint when they refuse. The app companies have no system in place for investigating and, nine times out of 10, if a driver tries to complain, they’ll be the one who loses their licence.

ADCU member Maryan, a mum of four from Brent who drives at night to support her kids, learned this the hard way. After two years of driving from Uber, she returned from holiday to find she had been permanently deplatformed from the app, without explanation. She racked her brains as to what might have happened, and remembered one particularly difficult passenger who had been in a hurry, and had put pressure on her to break the speed limit. 

“I’m convinced he thought he could intimidate me, because I’m a woman, and also because I wear the hijab. He kept asking if he could take the wheel, and drive himself, which he would never have done if I had been a man.”

Maryan appealed to Transport for London, which investigated and cleared her to work, but still Uber refused to let her back on the platform. So she contacted her MP, Barry Gardiner, who wrote to Uber for an explanation. It refused to provide details of the complaint and claimed, without evidence, that there had been several others made against her, none of which Maryan had been told about. 

“All I wanted was to be able to tell my side of the story, but they wouldn’t give me a chance,” she says. “It’s such a shame, because I love my job.”

Catherine Meechan, couriers branch member for ADCU, highlights another issue affecting women drivers — the fact that the algorithm is inherently sexist. 

“I’ve been working as a delivery driver for five years, and have a five-star rating. A male friend was thinking of becoming a delivery driver, so I said I would show him the ropes. We were sitting in McDonald’s, and a job came up on the app, offering £3.50. I turned it down, because I was talking to him and didn’t want to take it. He logged onto the app seconds later, and was offered the same job at a rate of £5. This was Uber Eats, which has known for a long time that the system discriminates against women — there was research carried out by Stanford University back in 2018, which found that male drivers earn about 7 per cent more than women — but they have done nothing about it.”

So if you manage to beat the odds and book a female driver to take you home, or bring you your food, on International Women’s Day, be extra nice to her. And give her a big tip.