El Paso woman sues Uber after alleged violent, terrifying ride with her children

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- A newly filed lawsuit in El Paso County accuses Uber Technologies, Inc. and one of its drivers of false imprisonment, assault, and gross negligence after a ride reportedly spiraled into a violent confrontation, leaving a mother and her two young children traumatized.

According to court filings, plaintiff Cynthia Sarabia, acting individually and on behalf of her two minor children, alleges that an Uber driver refused to let the family exit the car, drove recklessly at nearly 90 miles per hour on Interstate 10, and ultimately struck the mother and one of her children during a heated confrontation at a gas station in East El Paso.

The petition, filed April 1 in the 205th District Court of El Paso County, details what Sarabia’s attorneys describe as a “terrifying sequence of events that escalated into unlawful restraint and physical violence.”

The lawsuit states that on July 29, 2025, Sarabia and her two children entered an Uber ordered by someone else’s account. From the beginning of the trip, Sarabia claims, she noticed that one of the children’s seat belts was broken. When she alerted the driver, he allegedly ignored her and soon began driving erratically, “swerving” and “accelerating to speeds approaching 90 miles per hour.”

Despite repeated pleas to slow down or stop, the driver allegedly refused. Sarabia asserts that the driver told her the family could not exit “unless she canceled the trip through the Uber app,” effectively trapping them in the moving vehicle. Sarabia says she did not control the Uber account used to book the ride and therefore could not terminate it herself.

The situation came to a halt when the driver briefly pulled over on the shoulder of I-10, yelling at them to get out in an unsafe location before continuing to drive to a Murphy USA gas station on Gateway West Boulevard.

According to the complaint, the confrontation turned violent: the Uber driver allegedly struck Sarabia and then scratched one of the minor children. Sarabia says she used pepper spray in self-defense before the driver fled, allegedly throwing an unknown liquid at her as he drove off.

Police responded to the scene, taking statements and recording the family’s account that the driver refused to let them leave and physically attacked them.

Beyond the driver’s conduct, the lawsuit sharply criticizes Uber’s platform design and safety protocols, accusing the company of enabling the situation by giving drivers too much control over the passenger's ability to end trips.

The petition argues that Uber “failed to implement reasonable safeguards” to prevent rides from continuing under unsafe conditions and did not offer passengers, particularly those not holding the account, an “effective, real-time mechanism to immediately terminate a ride and compel a safe stop.”

Sarabia’s attorneys further contend that Uber was negligent in hiring, retention, training, and supervision, alleging that the company did not properly screen or instruct drivers on how to handle safety complaints, respond to passenger requests to stop, or transport minor children.

The lawsuit also accuses Uber of both direct negligence and vicarious liability, claiming the driver was acting within the scope of Uber’s business and under its operational control via its platform and policies.

"This lawsuit raises a lot of questions about public safety and we're going to address that through this lawsuit with the safety expectations that riders can come to expect when they need to get off a car, such as an Uber," said attorney David E. Saucedo. "The legal process will allow us to get certain questions answered, such as what is the training process of drivers when someone needs to get off? What happens when there's a real-time emergency? How does a rider get off the car, right? And what other processes and vetting processes do these drivers, does Uber undertake with these drivers? And these are questions that are going to be answered during the legal process."

Plaintiffs bring several causes of action, including:

• Assault and battery against the driver for striking Sarabia and one child
• False imprisonment for allegedly refusing to allow the family to leave
• Negligence and gross negligence against both defendants for reckless behavior and failure to ensure passenger safety
• Direct negligence and negligent supervision against Uber for unsafe platform design and lack of proper training or intervention protocols

The family seeks more than $1 million in damages, alleging physical injury, emotional trauma, and ongoing anxiety—particularly among the children, who reportedly remain fearful of car rides since the incident. The petition also requests exemplary (punitive) damages for what the plaintiffs describe as “extreme risk” and “conscious indifference” to passenger safety.

"Our goal here is to make sure that we understand why it happened and, more importantly, that it doesn't happen again, not just here in El Paso, but everywhere," said attorney Saucedo. "At the end of the day, any El Pasoan should be able to get in an Uber and safely exit the Uber; that's it, that's how it works and that's how it should be done."

According to attorney Saucedo, who represents Cynthia Sarabia, they hope to find out exactly what happened and how it happened to avoid and prevent it from happening again.

"The gas station is where the ride ended, but where the nightmare, to a certain extent, ended, but really began because of the suffering that she's had and all that," Saucedo added.