Perhaps this whole "random people using their regular car to give rides to total strangers" thing was a bad idea...

What if instead the rides were given in specially modified cars that can include some security features for both parties? And in order to pay for this, perhaps there could be some kind of central company that owned the cars and simply hired the drivers?

True! Good point

riders were the accused party 43% of the time in sexual assault incident reports

The protected category doesn't matter, I don't see how anyone is getting a leg up or being held back by the feature.