Second Woman Raped, Murdered By Car Share Driver In China

Hitch, a Chinese ride hire company has suspended all service after one of its drivers killed his 20-year-old female client in Wenzhou China over the weekend. The driver for hire application is part of the world largest rideshare company in terms of trips, Didi Chuxing, and says that it's suspending its car service while the company reexamines its practices and procedures.

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Local police say the 20-year-old woman used Hitch to hire 27-year-old Zhong in Wenzhou. She got into his vehicle at 1:00 p.m. local time on Friday. An hour later she sent an urgent message to a friend asking for help but wasn't able to be contacted at her phone shortly after.

Zhong, whose last name was withheld, was detained early on Saturday morning by authorities to whom he confessed to raping and murdering his passenger, according to the BBC. Authorities have the body and are conducting an ongoing investigation.

Didi said Zhong had passed a criminal record before he was hired, but that the company had received a complaint about him from a previous passenger who said Zhong who took her to a remote place she didn’t request, then followed her after she exited the car.

This is Hitch’s second femicide this year. Last May, a driver raped and murdered his 21-year-old passenger in the Henan province after which the company suspended its service for six weeks.

The Verge reports that several female riders have made formal complaints to the car hire company such as drivers frequently leaving inappropriate comments on their Hitch profiles after using the service. Hitch said it implemented an emergency button and facial recognition components to the app to “minimize the risk of unapproved account use.”

The South China Morning Post notes that while the Didi officials assisted the police, it then told the victim’s family to file a police report when they requested information about the driver.

Hitch fired its general manager and its customer services vice president, and is opening an investigation into its own processes that lead to the unfortunate murder saying in a statement: “This incident shows the many deficiencies in our customer service processes, especially the failure to act swiftly on the previous passenger’s complaint and the cumbersome and rigid process of information sharing with the police. This is too high a cost to pay.”

China's transport ministry has demanded concrete action from the rideshare conglomerate Didi Chuxing to ensure passenger safety. "The Ministry demands that Didi... stops making empty promises and takes concrete steps to ensure passengers' safety."

The company has completed one billion trips in its three years of operation.

Uber sold its app to Didi in 2016 after failing to make a profit.

Uber and Lyft, both popular rideshare apps in the United States have been under investigation for rampant sexual assault inflicted upon riders. A CNN investigation showed that by April of this year at least 103 Uber drivers had been accused of sexually accosting their passengers across the United States, 31 of them were convicted in court.

Only recently did both companies allow assault victims to take the company to court. Previously they were bound to enter into confidentiality agreements as part of arbitration to settle claims.