Turo Under Scrutiny After Cars Used in Attacks 

United States: The cars used in the New Orleans and Las Vegas attacks on New Year’s Day were both rented through a car-sharing app called Turo. This has raised concerns about how well the app checks its users and keeps things secure. Turo confirmed that the suspects rented the cars from its app. 

As reported by the axios.com, both the companies said they do not think that either renter had criminal background that made them a security threat, and they are not aware of any information that links the two incidents that took place recently and they are in touch with the law enforcement agencies that are investigating into the incidents. 

A Turo spokesperson told Axios Thursday that they were “outraged by the misuse of the marketplace of our company by the two individuals who perpetrated these acts.” 

The big picture: Among vehicle ramming, 5% of 184 known attacks using vehicles between 1970 and 2018 were carried out using a rented car, as detected by a study by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University in 2019. 

The most lethal kind of attack was with a rental car, which caused 29% of the victims’ death in the observed cases. 

For instance, the analysis pointed out that, ‘’if the attacker rents a vehicle, then this signals that they planned the attack and, in fact, they prefer bigger vehicles.’’ 

How does Turo work? 

The current application like Airbnb is focused on the daily or per hour car rental service where the car is rented directly from its owner instead of from a car rental company like Hertz. 

In the app, renters are able to decide where they wish to rent the car from and when and what model and price they want before selecting it then arrange for where and when they will be picking up and returning the car from the owner. 

Hosts can physically collect the car from owners or arrange a touchless pickup where renters open the car with a code or an app. 

Anyway, the service’s minimum is USD 15 per each Turo trip; nonetheless, the daily price is defined by the car owners. It will also charge a fixed fee ranging from USD 2.5 to USD 100 of the trip cost depending on such factors as the trip duration and the value of the car.