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Online Carpooling Service Fined In Canada
TechDirt is reporting on a disappointing development out of Canada. An Ontario transportation board has fined PickupPal, a Web-based service for arranging carpools, because a local bus company complained of the competition. (TechCrunch apparently first broke the story.) "[The transportation board has] established a bunch of draconian rules that any user in Ontario must follow if it uses the service — including no crossing of municipal boundaries — meaning the service is only good within any particular city's limits. It's better than being shut down completely, and the service can still operate elsewhere around the world, but this is yet another case where we see regulations, that are supposedly put in place to improve things for consumers, do the exact opposite."
* You must travel from home to work only â" (Not Home to School, or Home to the Hospital or the Airport) * You cannot cross municipal boundaries â" (Live outside the city and drive in â" sorry you cannot share the ride with your neighbour) * You must ride with the same driver each day â" (Want to mix it up go with one person one day and another person another day â" no sorry cannot do that â" must be same person each day) * You must pay the driver no more frequently than weekly â" (Neighbour drives you to work better not pay her right away just in case she drives you later on in the week)
Personally, I'm confused as to how they came to these regulations. It's built on a faulty foundation that they could define carpooling as a very strict set of conditions- and then disallow any activity that didn't meet those conditions.
It just plainly doesn't make sense. If I want to share a ride with a complete stranger and split the gas, how is that any different from sharing a ride with a family member? According to these restrictions, I can't drive myself and my mom to the airport and split the gas cost?
It's my car and I'd much prefer to do with it what I'd please- I see absolutely no reason the government has any say in this!!
Other Canadian news:
-In a surprising decision by the Ontario Sandwich Authority, You may no longer split the cost of a foot long sub with somebody else and then each eat half, as it doesn't boost profits to our local sub shops...
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Everyday I walk 20 minutes to get to work. I could take the bus - wich would take just as long, and would cost me much more.
So, how long until walking is prohibited? It seems pretty unfair to me, looking this way.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Because nothing says "Good System!" like using your lobbying clout to get the government to shut down your more efficient competition.
If you can't compete, then you shouldn't be in the game.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Are they going to randomly stop cars with more than one person and question everybody? Or maybe they'll have undercover police. We could even have a new CSI CPU (Carpool Unit).
Depends on your type of government. The more you move toward socialism, the more the government is concerned with creating jobs through this sort of hackery.
Once you start protecting industries purely because they employ people, you're in trouble.
Right now in the US, it's the automakers. The traditional rationale for protecting them is because our national security requires the manufacturing base (in case we have to switch it over to tanks, for example).
But when the government props an industry up, it becomes less efficient. Recessional trimming is necessary to keep businesses from institutional bloat; it forces them to explore alternatives, improve their products, and to trim their workforce. If they never have to do that, then they'll never be competitive with companies that do.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I thought the government was only supposed to provide services that the private sector can't or won't provide with reasonable cost and quality.
Which is exactly what's happening here - I'm sure if there was a private sector company that provided services to the bus companies like imposing draconian regulations onto carpoolers, the bus companies would never have needed to turn to the government to provide these services!
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
As soon as the bus company is merely directing people to buses and not operating said buses, they have a valid complaint.
In the mean time, there is no equivalence.
I guess I'd be a lot more interested in the facts from which you derive your conclusions rather than the conclusions themselves. It sounds to me like PickupPal is simply an electronic "ride board", and little more.
AccountKiller
Specifically, it allows drivers and passengers to arrange compensation for trips.
Does this remind you of anything else? Oh, yes, a taxi company (or bus company, take your pick)...
The difference being that the taxicab/bus company itself makes money on each ride. PickupPal does not receive any money from the passenger or driver. Are they going to fine the phone company when I call my friend up and we arrange a road trip where he agrees to pay for half the gas? What about the message boards at colleges where drivers and passengers arrange for long trips back home? Sue the college?
Specifically, it allows drivers and passengers to arrange compensation for trips.
Between the driver and passenger, which is a private transaction that has nothing to do with PickupPal. It is not a transaction between the driver, passenger, and 'arranging' entity (taxicab company). Now, if you want to go after a driver because he is accepting money for a ride without having a taxi license, then go ahead. But going after PickupPal is just absurd.
If the car you rode in said "Pickup Pal" on the side, I'd see the logic in regulating them. As it stands, they're just connecting two individuals – one of whom is willing to provide a service for cost, and one who is willing to pay for the service.
A misguided bill.
There should be no law banning phones/TVs.
Just a reckless driving law. Does it matter why they were driving recklessly? What next, a specific bill to ban putting on makeup? shaving? reading a news paper? eating?
Getting that specific is needs, wasteful, leave loop holes, and harms any potential valid need to do thjose things.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"[The transportation board has] established a bunch of draconian rules that any user in Ontario must follow if it uses the service â" including no crossing of municipal boundaries â" meaning the service is only good within any particular city's limits. It's better than being shut down completely, and the service can still operate elsewhere around the world, but this is yet another case where we see regulations, that are supposedly put in place to improve things for consumers, do the exact opposite."
Regulations ultimately act to benefit the regulated; not the public. The raise barriers to entry and protect incumbents. A Nobel Prize laureate in Economics pointed that out years ago.
In general, regulated industries can sustain higher prices and have less competition than unregulated ones. That's not o say regulation does not have a place; but to think it results in lower prices to consumers is wrong.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Unlicensed van drives? As in they didn't have a drivers license? Or they didn't have some arbitrary piece of paper that said they couldn't drive around a bunch of strangers?
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Unlicensed van drives? As in they didn't have a drivers license? Or they didn't have some arbitrary piece of paper that said they couldn't drive around a bunch of strangers?
Every jurisdiction that I know of requires special licensing for the driver and has restrictions on the vehicle (usually in the form of increased insurance coverage) for people or companies that conduct passengers in cars for money. They are called taxis|limosenes|buses.
Are you implying that taxies shouldn't be regulated?
It makes sense to limit carpooling so that operators are not calling themselves carpoolers to avoid regulations. That presumes that the taxi|bus regulations are rational in the first place.
However, the restrictions that the Ontario Transportation Board (or whatever it calls itself) has put in place are idiotic.
TFA is a little one-sided.
First, the regulations that exist are not there to stop carpooling, they're there to ensure bus and taxi services are safe. This isn't some theoretical problem, either, as a number of people were killed in an unlicensed and uninsured van in southern Ontario a few years back. (Would they have been alive if the service vehicle had been through a safety check, or if the operator of the vehicle was properly licensed? I don't have those details, and I can't find the article I was reading about it this morning). The problem is that the regulations are very broadly defined, and a lot of car pooling falls under them.
The Ontario government has been actively working to fix the laws for a while now, so they don't apply to car pool services (http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/09/02/ot-carpool-080902.html). But, how to write a law which covers a taxi, and doesn't cover car pooling? Tough to get right, but they are working on it.
Second, the site in question, PickupPal, was being used by a couple of companies in southern Ontario who were selling rides from Ottawa to Toronto, and the reverse direction (a 6 hour drive), putting multiple people into vans. So, essentially, running a bus service. This is a far cry from car pooling, and obviously these companies should fall under the bus regulations. Should the government be fining PickupPal, or fining these unlicensed bus services directly? Hard to say without knowing all the details involved.
PickupPal, though, called the ruling a victory, so they're obviously happy with it.
No, just prostitution. Oh, wait. That one was the U.S. Our turn to be stupid, I guess.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.