Uber Technologies Inc. released its first-ever U.S. safety report Thursday, detailing how many murders, sexual assaults and fatal crashes happened during its rides through 2018.

Although the numbers look grim on their face, Uber pointed out in a blog post that through its app there were 1.3 billion rides last year, which worked out at 31 million rides per day or 45 rides every second inside the U.S.

“In 2017, Uber kicked off a comprehensive effort across the company to focus on safety,” said the company. “We developed new technology, strengthened background screenings for drivers, launched new safety features, overhauled how we train our support staff, updated our policies, and tripled the size of our Safety team.”

After these new measures, Uber said, there were 3,045 sexual assaults in its cars last year, while 58 people died in crashes. A further nine people were murdered while taking a trip with Uber.

Of the sexual assaults, Uber said 235 were rapes, with the company breaking down such assaults into 21 categories. Uber partnered with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and the Urban Institute to develop a classification system.

“I suspect many people will be surprised at how rare these incidents are; others will understandably think they’re still too common,” Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi wrote in a series of tweets. “Some people will appreciate how much we’ve done on safety; others will say we have more work to do. They will all be right.”

Khosrowshahi went on to say that the work on safety will “never be done,” adding that Uber is a better company for putting together the report. “I firmly believe that companies who are open, accountable and unafraid are ultimately the companies that succeed,” he said.

At the same time, Uber Chief Legal Officer Tony West told The New York Times that the findings were “jarring and hard to digest,” adding, “What it says is that Uber is a reflection of the society it serves.”

Uber said it has introduced a umber of features to ensure safety, including more stringent background checks for drivers, sharing names of banned drivers and creating a survivor hotline. Next year it will expand its sexual misconduct and assault education course in the U.S.

Photo: quotecatalog/Flickr