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Online Carpooling Service Fined In Canada

Posted by kdawson on from the regulatory-capture dept.

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."

7 of 541 comments (clear)

  1. No sense... by FredFredrickson · · Score: 5, Insightful
    According to the Ontario Highway Transportation Board, there are many restrictions regarding carpooling...

    * 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
    1. Re:No sense... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As usual the situation is a little less ridiculous than the blogs make it out to be.

      The bus company has a valid point that if I wanted to start a bus service but I didn't want to bother with things like safety regulations or hiring drivers with the appropriate license, I could easy just use the carpool site. The carpool site themselves were (they're not anymore) charging a commission.

      The bus company says it's unfair competition because anyone with a car can set themselves up as a mini bus company without the expense of adhering to safety regulations. The transportation board's worry is that there will be a bunch of amateur, unregulated bus/cab drivers running around.

    2. Re:No sense... by Strep · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This ain't democracy. Was there really a 51% majority that voted for this? Representative democracy works... in theory... if you don't elect idiots as the representatives.

    3. Re:No sense... by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are plenty of cases where government gets it right, plenty of cases where businesses get it wrong.

      The difference is that I have a choice of which private enterprises I do business with. Short of armed revolt or emigration I don't have that same choice when it comes to Government.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    4. Re:No sense... by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Talking about more or less regulation (as the word "deregulation" does), is useless. A regulated market needs two things: Policy that makes sense, and exactly that minimum set of regulations necessary to reasonably implement that policy.

      People who are for "deregulation" generally assume that we started with neither of those things, and so removing some regulation will make things less screwed up. Those against "deregulation" assume we started with a situation reasonably close to those things and removing some regulations will break everything. And you know what they say about assumptions...

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
    5. Re:No sense... by Alaska+Jack · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Informative though it may have been modded, this take on democracy is wrong, at least as far as the U.S. goes (it's not clear whether by "we" you mean the U.S., Canada, or the western world). The U.S. was not the world's first democracy. But it was the first large-scale attempt at it that tried to draw on the lessons of the past. Did you know that every surviving account of democracy (Athens, Italian city-states, etc) was harshly *critical* of it? Greek observers of the day, for example, wrote what were even by modern standards very sophisticated, insightful critiques of democracy and the way it eventually boiled down to simple mob rule. What was revolutionary about what the Americans did was the way they attempted (drawing on the previous work of French, English and Scottish enlightenment theorists) to develop and implement a *hybrid* system, one that blended aspects of authoritarianism and democracy in a way that emphasized the best aspects of each and ameliorated their weaknesses. So, for example, some people think that the reason they didn't implement direct democracy is because they didn't have the practical means to disseminate information, vote, etc. This is not true. The American founders didn't WANT direct democracy, because historically that had inevitably lead to a tyranny of the majority. They wanted educated, worldly men to make the decisions ... but they wanted the people to choose WHICH educated, worldly men made those decisions. - Alaska Jack

  2. Re:Article Biased... by superdave80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.