Affordable and available, but woes aplenty — ride hailers talk about pros and cons of bike taxis in Bengaluru Premium

Apart from the fear of harassment, what scares travellers the most is the rash riding habits of the riders or captains of bike taxis as they are identified by brands

On April 21, a female architect booked a bike taxi from her residence in Yelahanka at around 11.10 p.m. to travel to Indiranagar. What followed next was a ride which made her decide that she would not hail a bike taxi again.  

On the pretext of checking OTP, the rider, who was later identified by police as Deepak Rao, snatched her phone and allegedly sexually harassed her. While the woman resisted, the rider started to go in a direction different from the one he was supposed to take. To avoid further trouble, the woman jumped off the speeding bike and injured herself. Later, Rao was nabbed by the police. 

Speaking to The Hindu, a close friend of the victim said that better accountability and security were the need of the hour for the safety of the womenfolk during the night hours. “She had been hailing bike taxis for a long time in Kolkata before she moved to Bengaluru, even as late as 11.30-12 in the night. Even here, she had hailed bike taxis several times, but this one incident was traumatising.” 

The friend further said that taxi aggregator companies should conduct better background verification of drivers to avoid such incidents. “No one takes lifts from random bikes on the road. It is because of these riders’ association with certain brands that we hail them. Yet, such problems occur. It would have also been more beneficial if there were more CCTV cameras and police personnel present on the Doddaballapur Road (where the incident occurred) as then, the rider might not have done something like this,” they said.

“Needless to say, she is heavily traumatised and will not be hailing another bike taxi ride in a long time,” the friend concluded. This one incident sent shockwaves throughout the city and brought to light many problems associated with hailing these “affordable, quick yet scary” carriers. After this and a similar incident which occurred a few months ago, many women have stopped taking bike taxis altogether, while others have grown apprehensive and vigilant. 

Apart from the fear of harassment, what scares travellers the most is the rash riding habits of the riders or captains as they are identified by some brands. “I am usually scared to sit on two-wheeler taxis as they want to manoeuvre even an inch gap on roads. They speed very often and do not listen to us even when we request them to slow down. Especially post 9 p.m., many are scared to take bike taxis as they ride very rashly. The captains are also not feedback friendly and lash out at us if we ask them to slow down,” said Apurba Banerjee, a PR professional from Vasanthnagar. 

Ms. Banerjee was one among the many people who preferred bike taxis as they were easily available. However, these days, responsiveness is not what it used to be, frequent users said. “As my office is only three kilometres from my residence, auto rickshaws were not accepting rides, but I used to get bike taxis all the time. Now, I only get it three out of five times,” Ms. Banerjee said.