Why Women’s Safety On South Africa’s Roads Requires More Than Technology

Every August, South Africa celebrates the achievements and resilience of women, with this year carrying even greater significance as the country marks 70 years since the historic 1956 Women’s March, when 20,000 women united to challenge laws that restricted their freedom of movement. For many women, however, Women’s Month also brings an uncomfortable reminder that freedom of movement is still experienced differently depending on who you are.

Ask almost any woman about going out at night to meet friends or on a first date, working late or travelling somewhere unfamiliar, and the conversation will often include the precautions that have become second nature. Letting loved ones know where they are, sharing their location, checking that a driver matches the details on an app or even pretending to have a partner to discourage unwanted attention are behaviours that many women have adopted simply as part of navigating everyday life. Unfortunately, these precautions exist for a reason. More than one in three South African women have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.

No single app, business or intervention can solve a societal crisis of this scale, but every industry that forms part of a woman’s daily life has a responsibility to consider what it can do to reduce the uncertainty women experience. For those of us operating in mobility, that means paying closer attention to how we can give women greater confidence, visibility and control before, during and after every journey.

Safety Begins Long Before The Journey

In our research, women have consistently told us that feeling safe is not simply about what happens once a journey is underway. It is also about how much information and control they have before they even get into a vehicle. That insight has influenced the way we approach product and app feature development, because seemingly small moments of uncertainty can have a significant impact on how comfortable someone feels.

Finding the correct pickup point at a busy shopping centre, transport hub or office park may seem like a minor inconvenience, but uncertainty about where to wait can leave passengers spending longer than necessary in unfamiliar surroundings. To address this, inDrive recently introduced Panorama View, which provides a street-level image of the pickup location where available, alongside Recommended Pickup Points that guide passengers towards clearer meeting locations.

Knowing who is collecting you, whether you can travel with friends rather than alone, whether you can avoid sharing your personal phone number and whether someone you trust can follow your journey remotely are also important considerations. The more informed and in control someone feels before, during and after a trip, the more confident they are likely to feel using the service.

Driver verification has become a standard expectation, giving passengers greater confidence that the person arriving matches the information shown in the app. Beyond that, passengers need simple ways to remain connected throughout a trip. With Share Your Ride, they can send a live link so someone can follow the journey in real time, while Trusted Contacts allows them to save the people who matter most and reach them in one tap if something feels wrong. In-app calling also allows passengers and drivers to coordinate without exposing personal phone numbers, while support remains available when it is needed.

The platform also offers different ride options depending on passengers’ needs, including an XL option that allows groups to travel together rather than splitting into separate vehicles. None of these features should be presented as groundbreaking solutions to a much larger societal problem, but removing small moments of uncertainty before they become stressful can make a meaningful difference to someone's experience.

Technology Is Only Part Of The Solution

Technology can give people more information and control, but it cannot address every factor that contributes to women feeling unsafe. Creating safer environments requires a collective effort from government, law enforcement, businesses, urban planners and communities.

Better lighting around transport hubs, safer public spaces, faster responses to reports of gender-based violence, stronger prosecution of offenders and continued education around respect and consent all have an equally important role to play. The responsibility cannot rest solely on women adapting their behaviour or on technology companies adding more features to their platforms.

Women's Month should ultimately challenge all of us to ask whether women feel as free to move through South Africa today as they should. For the mobility industry, that means continuing to listen to women's experiences and recognising that every seemingly small improvement can make a difference, whether it helps someone feel more informed, gives them greater control or simply removes one unnecessary moment of uncertainty from their journey.