From school events, sports practices, and unexpected medical appointments to shopping trips, every parent wants to be a part of every important moment of their children's lives.
Unfortunately, it's just not always possible to always be available to take our kids wherever they need to go. Demanding work schedules, long commute times or even irregular work hours can leave many parents with limited time to provide transportation to every extracurricular or social event. Additionally, the lack of reliable public transportation has historically made it difficult for parents to find alternative means of transportation, leaving many teenagers and parents to navigate the needs of daily activities by relying erratically on friends, relatives or simply resorting to walking long distances.
The introduction of e-hailing services, such as Uber, in the country over a decade ago has emerged as an easy and efficient solution to this challenge by providing a convenient and reliable means of transportation. Because of its flexibility, parents can easily book a ride for their teenagers on their own app.
To help provide the clearly important and needed transportation service for young teenagers; while also addressing and strengthening the safety and security of the ride experience, Uber has just launched teen accounts. With the new product, parents and guardians can now invite their teens (aged 13-17) to create a specialized Uber account that will allow teens to request their own rides with parental supervision and key safety features built into the experience. The teen will receive a link to download the app, create their new teen account, and complete the mandatory safety onboarding process. After that, teens can start requesting trips on their own.
"Teen accounts are built with transparency in mind so that there are no surprises for parents, teens, or drivers," said Kagiso Khaole, General Manager, Uber Sub-Saharan Africa. "We're thrilled to offer this innovative feature to families in South Africa, which will provide peace of mind for parents and allow them to manage transportation arrangements for their children around their own commitments while giving them the freedom and independence to travel both comfortably and safely.
Before a teen gets in the car for a trip, they'll be prompted to give their driver a unique PIN. Drivers will not be able to start the trip until they enter the correct code into their app, providing an extra layer of protection to ensure teens get into the right car with the right driver.
PIN Verification adds an extra layer of protection to make sure that teens get in the right car with the right driver by requiring them to provide the driver with a unique pin code before getting into the car. Additionally, only highly rated and experienced drivers who have passed local screening and background check requirements will be able to receive and accept trip requests from teen account holders.
Once their teens are in the vehicle, parents or guardians can rest assured knowing that they are safely and securely on their way through the real-time updates of the trip received through Live Trip Tracking. And, if they need to, they will also be able to contact their teen's driver at any time during the trip. Meanwhile, Uber's Ride Check feature uses sensors and GPS to detect if a ride goes off course, stops unexpectedly or ends early. And, Uber's Audio Recording feature allows users to record audio of their trip directly through the app which is encrypted and can be accessed only if an incident occurs.
"Uber remains committed to ensuring the safety and security of all our riders in South Africa. From the moment a ride is requested until the completion of the trip, safety is not just a feature of our service but rather key to our mission to deliver the best transportation experience and sits at the forefront of everything we do," adds Khaole.
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