Woman recounts alleged attempted rape on Taxify cab

Taxify says it temporarily blocked a driver-partner from its platform to investigate allegations of attempted rape but has now unblocked him as it does not believe he had bad intentions.

“After carefully considering all details‚ Taxify team decided to unblock the driver as we have a reason to believe the driver did not have bad intentions‚” Taxify said in a statement.

A woman‚ known as PARTYGetsMeWetter‚ described on Twitter on Wednesday how she “almost got raped last night”.

She explained how she passed out on the back seat of the cab and awoke to find the driver on top of her.

She said the driver told her she was imagining things.

Taxify said it took this kind of incident very seriously and that it had contacted both parties involved in the incident.

A Taxify spokesperson said the versions given by its driver and the woman were very different.

Taxify called its driver to the office to explain his side of the story.

According to Taxify‚ the driver said a rider requested a ride and inserted Braamfontein as a destination in the app.

“This is not a specific address and Taxify team can confirm it was so from the system.”

The driver said they started driving and the rider fell asleep on the backseat.

“When they reached that region‚ the driver tried to wake up the rider to ask for a specific address. He then proceeded to tap her from the front seat to wake her up.

“She woke up with a fright and started claiming that the driver was trying to rape her. The driver said he offered to take the rider to the police station seeing as she claimed he tried to rape her. She refused‚ telling the driver to take her home.”

Taxify said upon reaching the destination which she had now specified‚ her boyfriend or husband was waiting for her.

“She just got out of the vehicle and went with her boyfriend/husband. No questions asked‚” Taxify said.

In addition‚ Taxify said when it called the rider and asked if the driver was lying on top of her when she woke up‚ she said: "No‚ I woke up in time".

Taxify said this might indicate that this was a huge misunderstanding.

Taxify also said the rider's clothes had not been removed.

It said the rider did not request any further assistance and told its customer support team to "just leave it".

Taxify said it took these kind of incidents very seriously as safety of “both our riders and driver-partners is our priority”.