Community Guidelines

Community Guidelines

We want to look out for each and every member of our community. The following guidelines are meant to ensure that drivers and riders will feel safe, respected, and at ease while using the DiDi app.

Our Guidelines are based on six principles:

1. Safety on the Road

2. Security and Respect in the Vehicle

3. Honesty, Integrity, and Authenticity

4. Following the Law

5. Being Reliable

6. Your Feedback Matters

Some of these guidelines reflect DiDi’s formal policies. Others are there to help community members create and sustain a ridesharing culture that is good for everyone. Failing to live up to the Guidelines is a failure to live up to community expectations. This may result in suspension or disqualification from DiDi’s platform.

Safety on the Road

Safety comes first. Nobody should have to worry when they hop in the car, or when they pick up a rider. This means:

• Wear your seatbelts: Drivers and riders all need to buckle up in the car. It is ultimately the driver’s responsibility to make sure that everyone has their seatbelts on.

• No dangerous driving: For drivers, it is important to follow road laws, keep within speed limits, and drive sensibly. Phones should only be used in accordance with the law in your state. Examples of dangerous driving include:

• Swerving

• Unsafe overtaking

• Speeding

• Using your phone in an illegal manner

• Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

• Eyes on the road: Drivers should not be distracted by phones or by anything else going on in the car. For riders, this means not causing any disruptions that could affect a driver’s ability to stay focused on safe driving.

• Zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol: Drivers need to be clear-headed on the road. Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol is very dangerous, illegal, and is definitely in breach of DiDi’s policies.

• Meeting DiDi’s vehicle requirements: Drivers need to have safe, undamaged vehicles. If a driver’s car is involved in an accident, then it should be in a repair shop – not on the road.

What are DiDi’s vehicle requirements?

To meet our requirements, a vehicle needs to:

• Be in excellent working condition, with no cosmetic damage.

• Must be in the selected age range of the state you drive in. For example, if the car must be no older than 10 years old the car model must not be older than 2010 in 2020.

• Have 4 doors.

• Seat 4 or more passengers, plus the driver.

• Have working windows, seat belts and air conditioning.

• Not be a taxi, ex-taxi, government, branded or rebuilt vehicle.

• Be a roadworthy vehicle. This means the driver needs to:

  • Have a Certificate of Road Worthiness (known as Pink Slip in NSW) or your state’s required vehicle inspection (e.g. Redbook Inspection in VIC)

  • Be registered and CTP-insured (CTP is compulsory third party insurance and provides compensation for personal injuries when your vehicle is involved in an accident. The cover varies from state to state).

  • Be compliant with your state’s regulations regarding licensing your car for ridesharing.

• Driver insurance: Drivers must be registered and have a minimum of Third Party Property Insurance. Drivers must ensure that ridesharing is included in their primary cover. Third Party Property Insurance covers the damage your vehicle causes to someone else’s property, including their car. Comprehensive Insurance covers any property damage to your vehicle either in an accident or an incident.

• Managing driver fatigue: Driving all day is tough. Drivers need to ensure that they take regular breaks and avoid driving while sleep-deprived.

Why is it important to manage driver fatigue?

20-30% of all fatal accidents in Australia happen because of fatigue or tiredness while driving. Fatigue is the second biggest killer on the roads in NSW. There are some important things to be aware of:

• Being awake for 17 hours can have a similar effect on your driving performance as if you were driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.05.

• Fatigue is not just extreme exhaustion – it also includes everyday mental or physical tiredness that affects your ability to function.

• Fatigue reduces your attentiveness and alertness to dangers, slows reaction times, and can lead to microsleeps.

• Tiredness can occur on any drive – no matter how long or short, or the time of day.

• Driving at night is when you are most at risk of tiredness. Other high risk times are after lunch and early in the morning.

What are the early warning signs of fatigue?

You might catch yourself doing any of the following while you’re on the road:

• Yawning

• Losing concentration

• Drifting out of your lane

• Making unintended changes in speed

• Getting drowsy, or heavy-feeling eyelids.

These are early warning signs. If you recognise any of these signs, you should take a break from driving.

If you are seriously fatigued, you might experience a ‘microsleep’ – a brief and unintended episode of sleep. It will generally be accompanied by head-snapping, nodding, or closing your eyes. This can be deadly if it happens while you’re at the wheel. If you notice this happen, you should pull over immediately and stop driving.

How can you avoid driving tired?

It’s important to think about how tired you are before and while you are driving. There are a number of key strategies you can use to lower the risks of driving tired.

Before you drive:

• Get a good night’s sleep. 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night is recommended.

• Where possible, avoiding driving between midnight and 6:00 am, when your body naturally wants to sleep.

• Plan regular breaks.

• Know and recognise the early warning signs of fatigue.

• Find out if any medicine you are taking may affect your driving.

• If you’ve been driving for a number of days in a row, take some time off to recharge.

While driving:

• Take regular breaks, at least 15 minutes every 2 hours.

• If you start to feel tired, or experience any early warning signs, pull over somewhere safe and take a nap – even 15-20 minutes can help reduce the effects of tiredness.

• Try not to drive more than 8 to 10 hours every day – fatigue and tiredness will naturally creep in after this point.

• Managing car accidents

  If you are involved in a motor vehicle accident, it is important to take the following steps:

• First things first, make sure you are feeling okay. Give yourself a chance to check if you are injured.

• Please ensure the vehicle has come to a stop in a safe place, check if anyone has been injured and provide assistance if necessary.

•  If anyone has been injured, please contact emergency services as soon as possible and notify local law enforcement. Please follow up on the Driver’s Compulsory Third Party Insurance to identify if you are covered. This coverage changes depending on which state you are in.

• If there has been any property damage and the owner of the property or local law enforcement aren’t present, please report the incident to the nearest police station. Drivers, please make your primary insurance provider aware of the accident.

• It is important, if you are able, to take photos of the scene and collect contact information from the other driver and witnesses

• Car accidents must be reported to DiDi. Rest assured these reports are taken extremely seriously and will result in a full investigation to determine the best level of care required.

• If you are ever in a situation in which you feel unsafe or have been injured please contact emergency services, 000. During a trip, you can call 000 using our Emergency Button. You can also use the ‘share my trip’ feature to send your location and trip progress to your trusted contacts.

• The DiDi Incident Response Team is available 24/7. Please contact us to report any incidents.

Security and Respect in the Vehicle

Everybody deserves to feel secure and respected in the vehicle. This means:

• Being courteous: A DiDi trip should be a positive experience for both riders and drivers. Please be polite and be respectful of each other. For riders – if you’re not keen to chat, or you need to get some work done, feel free to sit in the back seat of the vehicle.

• Treating the vehicle well: Please respect the car. For drivers, this means maintaining a clean, well-cared-for vehicle – both on the inside and on the outside. For riders, this means being careful with your driver’s car. As a rider, you should:

• Be careful when opening doors near nature strips, trees, park benches, cyclists, other cars, or any other potential hazards.

• Remove your luggage from the car carefully.

• Avoid putting your feet up on the dashboard or, if you’re in the back, against the seats in front of you.

• Take care not to make a mess in the car, and remove any rubbish with you when you get out.

• Respecting each other’s privacy: It’s great to start a conversation, but please be aware that your ridesharing passenger or driver-partner might not want to talk, or at least not want to talk about certain topics. Remember it is not just about what you say, but also how the other person received it. It’s OK for people to keep to themselves – please don’t ask intrusive questions or talk about personal topics that make others uncomfortable. Some topics to avoid include:

• Asking about a person’s living situation. For example:

  •  “Do you live alone?”

  •  “Do you live with friends?”

  • “Is that where you live?”

• Asking about a person’s relationship status. For example:

  • “Are you seeing anyone?”

  • “Are you single?”

  • “Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?”

  • “Are you married?”

What does sexual harassment mean?

Sexual harassment is any unwanted, unwelcome or uninvited behaviour of a sexual nature which makes a person feel humiliated, intimidated or offended. Sexual harassment can take many different forms and may include physical contact, verbal comments, jokes, propositions, the display of offensive material, or other behaviours which create a sexually hostile environment.

Examples of sexual harassment can include:

• Uninvited touching

• Uninvited kisses or embraces

• Smutty jokes or comments

• Staring at a person or at parts of their body

• Sexually explicit conversation

• Persistent questions or insinuations about a person’s private life.

• No contact after the trip: It’s important to part ways at the end of your trip. You should not communicate with a rider or driver after your trip ends unless, for example, a rider has lost an item in the driver’s car and both the rider and driver consent to communicating in that way.

• Situation is out your control: If you are witnessing an incident occur that makes you feel unsafe, either inside or outside of the vehicle, please ensure you are in a safe location and contact local law enforcement. You can call 000 during a trip using our Emergency Button in the app. Drivers should pull over safely as soon as possible.

• No weapons in the vehicle: It is often illegal to carry weapons or to have them in your car. Even in circumstances where it is not, riders and drivers should be aware that DiDi does not permit weapons to be brought on trips. Nobody feels safe with a weapon in the car.

• Screening of community members: DiDi tries to ensure that the community is safe and respectful to each other. This involves:

• Initial screening: Drivers are vetted when they first sign up.

• Regular screening: DiDi is continually screening community members through rating systems, reports, in-app features and complaints. Riders and drivers who undermine the environment of security and respect can be educated, suspended, and even deactivated from using DiDi in the future.

Honesty, Integrity, and Authenticity

Riders and drivers should help to create an atmosphere of trust. This means:

• Using a registered vehicle: Drivers can use any car that is registered to their account. This means a driver can register and swap between multiple cars. Drivers must not use unregistered cars.

• Updating the car you’re using: If you have multiple cars registered to your account, you must switch your car on the app to match the car you are currently using. Driving a different vehicle creates uncertainty for riders. It means they are not sure whether they are getting into the correct car or not – ultimately making them afraid to use DiDi.

• Accurate personal information: Riders and drivers should ensure that their personal details in their DiDi account are true and up to date.

• No account sharing: It is vital that each driver uses their own account. Drivers must not share their accounts with other drivers. Account sharing is fraud, and it will result in being deactivated from the app.

• Photo must match: A rider should be able to see that the driver picking them up matches the photo of the driver they have been provided within the app. As a driver you can be deactivated if you do not match your photo, so please make sure it is a clear and accurate photo of you.

• Must have the right to work in Australia: Drivers are working and running businesses in Australia. To do this, they must have the right to work in Australia. Drivers must ensure that if they lose your right to work in Australia, they do not continue to drive with DiDi.

• Anonymous phone numbers: For safety and privacy reasons, when a rider and driver contact each other regarding a trip, whether that be about the whereabouts of each other at pick up or if an item has been left behind, both phone numbers will be anonymised, unless both the rider and driver consent to communicating in another manner.

• How to identify a vehicle and driver: Before entering a vehicle and beginning a trip it is important to check that the vehicle and driver are for you. Please check the number plate, car model and colour match the details in the app before entering the vehicle. To further confirm the driver and vehicle are for you, feel free to ask the driver “Who are you here to pick up?”

Riders should notify DiDi if they have lost an item, Riders can do this using the ‘Lost and Found’ self-help feature in the app. If you’re having trouble contacting a driver about your lost item, please remember that they may be driving or unable to answer your call immediately. If your lost item is not found, we strongly recommend you contact your local police station for further assistance.

Drivers should notify DiDi of any items that were left in their car. The rider will then be notified and provided with a phone number to contact you, subject to your consent. We believe this is the best way to organise the return of the item. If you’re unable to assist with the return of an item, you may take it to your nearest police station and provide us with the address.

• Following the law: All of our community members, riders and drivers alike, need to ensure that they follow the law at all times while they use our platform. The next section goes into a bit more detail about some of the things you might need to think about, but it may not be a complete list. It is your responsibility to follow the law.

Following the Law

• No discrimination: It is against the law and against DiDi’s values to discriminate against any rider or driver.

You will lose access to your account if you are found to have discriminated against a rider or driver because of their:

• Race

• Religion

• Sex

• Disability

• Gender identity

• Sexual orientation

• Marital status

• Pregnancy

• Country of origin

• Age

• Any other protected characteristic.

• Looking after children in the car: Only adults can have DiDi accounts. If a rider would like to let their child use their account, they must ensure that the child is accompanied by a parent or guardian at all times.

• Riders should provide car seats for small children: When riding with small children, it is the rider’s responsibility to bring a car seat that complies with any applicable laws. Drivers may refuse to carry passengers who cannot meet the legal requirements for transporting small children.

• Service animals are welcome: Service or assistance animals are widely recognised in Australia. Assistance animals are not pets, but rather are highly trained disability support services that enable a person with a disability to safely participate in personal and public life activities. In most states, drivers are legally required to allow a rider to bring along their service animal. Drivers are certainly expected by DiDi to allow riders to bring service animals on trips.

• Avoid property damage: It is against the law to damage another person’s property in Australia. Community members should be careful to ensure that they look after each other’s property, including the car itself, during a trip.

• No drugs or alcohol: Drivers and riders should comply with laws concerning the use and possession of drugs and alcohol while in the car, for example concerning riders bringing open containers of alcohol or drugs into a vehicle.

• : Drivers and riders must not bring firearms, or any other form of weapon, in a vehicle.

Being Reliable

• Avoiding cancellations and keep a high completion rate: Riders and drivers should be aware that once a trip has been set up, cancellations can be frustrating for the other party. Late cancellations, in particular, can cause a lot of difficulty for your ridesharing passenger. Please avoid cancellations if at all possible. For drivers, cancellations will affect your completion rate. If your completion rate is too low, it could result in suspension or even deactivation from our platform. Drivers can view more information about the requirements that apply to them in the app, in the applicable FAQ and in the Driver Suspension and Disqualification Policy. We will also send communications explaining the requirements and/or warnings before a suspension or deactivation. For riders, you may have to pay a cancellation fee in certain circumstances.

• Acceptance rate: Drivers have a lot of flexibility on our platform. They have the discretion to reject any trip that they are offered. They can turn the app off at any point in time. But while they are using the app, drivers should be aware that a low acceptance rate is detrimental to every other member of the community. Continual non-acceptance of trips increases the waiting time for drivers and other riders, makes our platform less appealing, and delays every other member of our community. If your acceptance rate is low, it could result in suspension or even deactivation from our platform. Drivers can view more information about the requirements that apply to them in the app, in the applicable FAQ and in the Driver Suspension and Disqualification Policy. We will also send communications explaining the requirements and/or warnings before a suspension or deactivation.

Your feedback matters

• Submitting constructive feedback: Our community is powered by self-reflection. We are always looking for opportunities to improve. It helps everybody when you submit accurate and constructive feedback on your trip experience, no matter whether you are a rider or a driver. If you have a good experience, tell us why. And if you have a bad experience, then definitely let us know!

• Your complaints are taken seriously: We respond to and investigate every complaint made to us. Trust, respect and safety are at the core of our community – we are determined to preserve these.

• No false complaints: Because we take your feedback very seriously, your complaints have the potential to seriously affect the target of your complaint. We know that people sometimes make fraudulent complaints. These people should be aware of the impact that this can have on a real person at the other end of the complaint.

• Providing supporting evidence: If you need to make a complaint, and especially if you were discriminated against or believe you were the victim of a crime, it is very helpful if you can provide any supporting documentation (e.g. photographs, video, audio recording, etc.) to us. The more detail the better.

• Full investigations: DiDi will perform full investigations for serious allegations. During such an investigation, you may find that your account has been suspended if an allegation has been made against you. This is a temporary safety measure and is not the final result of the investigation. You will be notified of the final result.

• Assisting law enforcement: DiDi will assist law enforcement agencies with all investigation requests. Helping the police helps to keep our community safer.

Safe Travels,

DiDi Australia