The tragedy that took a flight attendant’s life in Zhengzhou once again brought the safety concerns of ride-hailing services to the spotlight. In fact, the argument over e-hailing and taxis has never seemed to stop since the disruptive model came into being.

As I see it, using the car-sharing apps still exposes passengers to less danger than taking a taxi. When using a ride-sharing app, one can easily track everything ranging from the the car plate number, the driver’s personal information to the route being taken. Two years ago, a new feature Didi rolled out allows passengers to share the GPS updates of the trip with their family members and friends. It was not clear why this function was not triggered in this accident, but technically, e-hailing apps indeed do a better job in keeping passengers out of harm's way, especially for single ladies using the service at night.

It is the loophole in the background check on car-hailing platforms that merits more attention. The culprit in this incident used his father’s account, but ended up passing the face identification somehow, partly leading to this horrendous tragedy. Aside from this, an illegal supply chain that helps unqualified drivers pass the screening process and obtain the ride-hailing license is a chronic ailment. Such loopholes surely put passengers’ safety on the line.

The social feature of such ride-hailing apps also need to be mulled over. It is a common practice for online sharing platforms to base their rating system on reciprocal reviews. Didi, however, went too far in this regard. It allows its users who share similar interests and tags to stay in contact after the trip. Some reviews that contain private or explicit messages are not screened and visible to the drivers even before the passengers get in the car. This makes single beautiful young ladies the easy prey for drivers with malicious intent.

What looked like a disruptive new model in the first place has been mixed into existing ones, shaking up the the industry like other online sharing businesses have. An extreme case doesn’t justify the claim that taxis outpace ride-sharing in terms of security or any other aspects. Tighter regulations should be in place. Reciprocal reviews should be carefully screened. To ensure passengers' safety, these are the salutary lessons Didi should learn from this case.

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