This young female fashion designer has posted images of the horrific injuries she received after hiring a taxi from Uber partner Yandex.
The Russian ride sharing firm not only operates in its home country but also in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and in several countries is in partnership with Uber.
However, fashion designer Anastasia Che, 30, who says they are not properly checking their drivers, claims she was injured when the driver was speeding and crashed into a pole. She said: “Drivers who work in the Yandex Taxi service are not checked properly when they are hired.”
She added: “Anyone who has their own car and can fill out the application, which costs a few dozen lei, can actually get up from the table and start carrying people around the city without passing any technical tests or medical checks.”
As well as the horrific injuries that left a gash needing 32 stitches across the top of her head, she also suffered memory loss.
She had been travelling in her hometown of Chisinau, which is the capital of the Republic of Moldova, when the crash happened.
After the incident she decided not to say anything publicly because she was so ashamed of her injuries, but then on seeing the alleged indifference of the ridesharing service, she went on to social media to show the consequences of her ride with Yandex.
But when the trial of the driver came round, he was convicted of violating traffic rules but only sentenced to a 1,200-MDL (55-GBP) fine together with 6 penalty points.
After the conviction, she had then tried to gain compensation but said the company were completely uninterested. They said the driver of the taxi was responsible, and he was the person that needed to be contacted for any damages.
She added: “The company absolutely does not care about the safety of its passengers, and what is more when something happens, it shifts its responsibility to third parties. This is how Yandex Taxi is misleading its consumers.
“When I click on the Yandex mobile app and call a taxi, I’m entering into an agreement with them. The fact that the taxi that drove up and had the Yandex banner on it confirms Yandex were the main partner of the transaction.
“The company should be responsible for the safety of the passenger, and not anyone else.”
When they continued to reject her appeals, she went to social media saying: “I am now convinced that without the help of the public and maximum publicity by online media, it is going to be very difficult to achieve anything.”
In a recent case in Moscow, the court accepted that the Yandex Taxi driver was the correct defendant. In the summer of 2017, muscovite Elena Grashchenkova called the car through the Yandex Taxi application.
She said the driver seemed to her somehow strange, but she did not at that point smell alcohol. After a few minutes of travel, the Yandex branded Kia car hit a pole.
Elena was taken to a hospital with a fractured shoulder joint. The driver, as it turned out later, turned out to be a drug addict.
He was jailed for two years and ordered to pay 400,000 RUB (5,044 GBP) to Grashchenkova in compensation.
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Story By: Amelia Guran, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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