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."

Comments

Re:No sense...

[geekoid]

There is a saying:

A company does a hundred things wrong, and 1 right you only here about the 1 decision. The government does 1000 things right and 1 wrong, you only hear about the wrong one.

This is true.
A company just needs to to tralk about it's failures, and very few people know. The government has a lot of people whose sole purpose is to tell everyone when smething goes wrong.

I worked in the private sector for about 38 years, and now I work for a city government. I see aso many thing being done correctly, for the benefit of the citizen. I see projects that are completed on time and within budget all the time.
I see a lot less waste. (you can confuirm that by going to the labrary and looking at the numbers)

But a son as 1 thing goes wrong, it's headlines. Sometimes it
s becasue of a stupid elected official, sometimes it's due to unforseen factors. Like the price of rock suddenly going through the roof, sometimes it looks like a mistake because of a lack of facts.

Bear in mind even a moderately size City has 1000's of projects going on every day.
I ahve been pleasantly surprised working for the government. I have also learned a lot about why things seem so expensive.