When Isobel got into a taxi late one night, she felt safe. Then the driver asked her a question.

After finishing up an unusually long shift at work, Isobel* was heading home when she got in a cab.

"It was 9:45pm and I jumped into the taxi I had booked it on my phone's taxi app. I'd used this particular service many times, but this one was unlike any other. He kept asking where I had been to high school. I felt pressured to say, and couldn't think of a lie on the spot, so I told him," she told Mamamia.

"He then replied that he knew of that school, and that all the girls from there were known to 'put out' and were 'sluts'. He followed up by asking if that moniker fitted me. He was this big man that looked to be in his late 40s. I can't begin to describe how scared I felt, like my neck tensed and my heart was racing."

Isobel responded by laughing and saying 'no', and telling the driver she had to call her father, in a bid to end the conversation.

"I texted my dad to give him a very quick brief of what was going down, and then called him and he stayed on the phone with me until I got home. It was a very, very, very long 15 minutes. The guy just kept staring me up and down in the rear-view mirror."

Watch: If a man lived like a woman for one day. Post continues below.

Isobel says she complained and reported the incident afterwards, and got the standard "your complaint is very important to us'", but nothing came of it.

Madeleine* also had an uncomfortable encounter recently.

She was at a work function in the middle of the city, and it was late at night. She went to the taxi rank to save time.

"Because of my work, I have a regular taxi driver that I reach out to for airport trips often, and he's excellent. [But] I've had a couple of bad experiences in the last months in taxis. This was one of them," she told Mamamia.

"The taxi driver said it would be a set fee. I noted that's illegal, and that I wanted the meter on."

Legally, taxis hailed from a rank or on the street cannot refuse to use their meter in Australia.

"He continued to push and said since it was late at night it had to be a set fee. I knew he was lying, and the back and forth went on. He begged me to just pay what he said and then I started to feel unsafe and so I agreed. It was a 25-minute ride and I felt scared. I live on quite a dark street, so when I was getting out of the cab, I had a bit of fear that he could easily follow me."

The stories are countless. And concerning. Image: Getty.

Monique was also left feeling uneasy.

"I was in a taxi and within the seven minutes that it took to get from my house to an event in the city, the driver had tried to get me to move into his one-bedroom apartment with him. He was convinced that it was a great idea — apparently, he could sleep on the couch, and I could have the bedroom. I was so uncomfortable because, no matter what I said, he kept going and was very insistent," she said.

"I just wanted the damn ride to end. It's incredibly unsettling to have someone make up these wild future plans and be convinced that it should happen when you're a lone woman in a car with them."

The stories kept flooding into Mamamia:

"I got in a regular cab at around 11pm on a Saturday night. As we were driving through a tunnel, he asked me to confirm it was the first right turn off the road coming up. I said yes. Then he proceeded to speed up and go past the turn. I asked what he was doing, and he started sweating and shaking," said one woman.

"I was getting really scared, but managed to get out at the next set of lights. I called the cab company the next day to report, and I heard nothing back. I just kept thinking about Sarah Everard, as it wasn't long after that happened."

Another shared: "After a night out in Bali, I got into a cab with girlfriends. The driver asked me to use my phone for directions. I let him and then asked for it back. As my friends and I left the vehicle, we hadn't realised that he had swiped my phone. My friends then used their phones to call my number. He picked up and said he wouldn't return it unless we paid him money. It was a tourist trap, and we paid the money to get the phone back and get away from the situation, but I felt very violated and also silly."

There are the things women do to feel safe when walking alone at night — gripping their keys in their hands, calling someone on the phone, walking on the better-lit side of the street.

And there's the equally long list of precautions women feel they now have to make in taxis and rideshares.

"It's sad, but I don't engage in small talk, because I have such a fear that a male driver could think I was 'interested' or that there was more to it than just being friendly," one woman told Mamamia.

"At nighttime I make sure I'm on the phone to a girlfriend when I hop in, and I say to the driver, 'Sorry I'm just on the phone with my boyfriend during this ride, I hope that's okay,'" said another.

"I take a screenshot of the driver and their information once I have a confirmed taxi coming to pick me up via the app. I figure it's good to have a keepsake of their name and cab number if anything goes pear-shaped."

"I only ride with female drivers. I will opt for them when booking in an app, and that feature in my area is only available through rideshares instead of taxis. It's frustrating."

So, could having more female taxi drivers be the answer? One of Australia's leading taxi services, 13cabs, estimates only 11 per cent of their drivers are women. Data from the company though shows female drivers are increasingly preferred.

Of course, there's an equally important point to be made about the safety of taxi and rideshare drivers of all genders — many of whom have faced harassment and violence from passengers. This includes some female drivers becoming victims themselves.

There are new companies trying to change the industry, including Shebah HQ, which is an all-women rideshare service. But in the meantime, as we wait for services like this to grow in accessibility, we're still left at square one.

Ultimately, whether they're a passenger or driver, women shouldn't have to feel as though jumping in a cab comes with a sense of compromised safety. It's just yet another example of the challenges women have to deal with... still in 2024.

*These women's identities are known to Mamamia. They have chosen to remain anonymous for privacy reasons. 

Feature Image: Getty.