{"id":126553,"date":"2026-01-17T01:19:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T01:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/126553\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T01:19:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T01:19:33","slug":"consider-sitting-directly-behind-your-uber-driver-safety-expert-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/126553\/","title":{"rendered":"Consider sitting directly behind your Uber driver, safety expert says"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2013 This week\u2019s revelation by the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of Texas, implicating four rideshare drivers in separate kidnapping and sexual assault incidents<\/a>, has naturally raised safety concerns for passengers.<\/p>\n

Michael Matranga, a former member of the United States Secret Service, is the CEO of M6 Global Defense. His job is to make sure potentially high value targets stay safe.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Here\u2019s what we know about the 4 former Uber drivers facing federal kidnapping charges related to assaulting passengers<\/a><\/p>\n

Matranga, in an interview with KPRC 2, suggested that a passenger might have a better tactical advantage against a rideshare driver, if she sits directly behind the driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think sitting behind them is more important because now they\u2019re going to have to literally reach around in order to grab you, they\u2019re gonna have to get up out of their seat. Make it harder for them to be able to get you, right? So sitting behind is what I would encourage,\u201d Matranga said.<\/p>\n

Matranga also encourages rideshare customers to travel with a friend, citing the \u201cbuddy system\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, I\u2019d never encourage the riders to take food or drinks from these individuals, you never know what their intentions are. So, increased situational awareness is super important. It appears that these people were targeted because they were either inebriated or incapacitated in some way. It\u2019s unfortunate this is the world that we\u2019re living in, but what I will tell you is I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to get any better,” Matranga said.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 This week\u2019s revelation by the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of Texas, implicating four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2458,294,56,58,57,7878,66,223,13703,13961],"class_list":["post-126553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-assault","tag-crime","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-kidnapping","tag-local","tag-news","tag-rideshare","tag-uber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}