Cruising through concerns: Australian parents’ views on teen rideshare service use

Objectives: Rideshare services in Australia are increasingly popular, allowing individuals to hire a driver who uses their personal vehicle to transport them directly to their destination. These rideshare services can occur with or without sharing the vehicle with other passengers or making additional stops along the route. The rising use of rideshare services is coupled with the introduction of Uber Teen in April 2024, which offers independent transportation for teenagers and underscores the need to understand the perception of these services and use patterns among parents and their teenage children. Methods: An online survey was completed by 652 Australian parents (mean age = 45.7 years, SD = 9.2 years; 58.7 % female) to explore their attitudes and behaviours toward their teenagers’ use of rideshare services, both when accompanied by an adult and when unaccompanied. A logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors associated with teenagers’ unaccompanied rideshare use. Results: Nearly two-thirds of the participants (62.6 %) had personally used a rideshare service in the past three months, 46.1 % had used a rideshare service with their teenager, and 18.3 % reported that their teenager had used a rideshare service unaccompanied. Significant factors influencing teenagers’ unaccompanied rideshare use included prior rideshare experience, parent age, teenager age, and parental driving lapses (χ2(5) = 106.608, p < 0.001). Conclusions: These findings emphasise the critical role of safety and reliability in parents’ decisions regarding their teenagers’ unaccompanied use of rideshare services. With the growing presence of services like Uber Teen, it is vital for policymakers and service providers to address these concerns and strengthen safety measures to support teenage users more effectively.