X

Uber Wants to Make It Easier to Get Your Teen a Ride

New family profiles and teen accounts will let parents pay for rides and keep track of their kids' trips.

Oscar Gonzalez Former staff reporter
Oscar Gonzalez is a Texas native who covered video games, conspiracy theories, misinformation and cryptocurrency.
Expertise Video Games, Misinformation, Conspiracy Theories, Cryptocurrency, NFTs, Movies, TV, Economy, Stocks
Oscar Gonzalez
2 min read
uber-logo-1845
Angela Lang/CNET

Uber will now let families create profiles to make it easier for parents to pay and keep track of their kids' rides. 

The company revealed several new features Wednesday, including the new family profile allowing parents of 13- to 17-year-olds to set up rides for teens. They'll be able to keep track of teens' trips through Uber's safety features, including Audio Recording, and talk directly with highly rated drivers who will be eligible to make these trips. 

the page on the uber app to invite a teen to the family profile

Parents will soon be able to invite their teens to ride Uber. 

Uber

Family profiles will launch on May 22 in more than two dozen cities in the US and Canada, including New York City, Atlanta, Dallas and Houston. More areas will receive the feature in the coming weeks and months, but Uber didn't provide specifics. 

Uber said it worked with Safe Kids Worldwide, a nonprofit focused on preventing childhood injuries, to develop its teen accounts

"As part of our work, we were able to provide advice and expertise to Uber to help ensure teens have a safe experience from pickup to drop off," said Torine Creppy, president of Safe Kids Worldwide, in a statement. "By providing parents with safe alternatives to help their teens get around, we hope this will help create more equitable solutions for families facing barriers to transportation."

Another feature coming to Uber for riders in New York and LA is Uber Car Seat. Parents can request rides that have a Nuna's Rava car seat that carries children weighing from 5 to 65 pounds.

Group Rides is also coming to select cities allowing riders to invite others on a trip. The Uber app will organize the ride to pick up each person who will be charged their amount for the trip instead of having one person requesting money from each person. 

And for those who want to use Uber but have a tough time with their phone, the company created a new helpline. Those interested can call 1-833-USE-UBER in order to set up a trip like they would using the app.