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California Declares Carpooling Via Ride-Share Services Illegal
An anonymous reader writes: Ride-share companies like Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar got letters from the California Public Utilities Commission this week telling them that carpool features for their services are illegal. "Basically, the CPUC says that under California law it's illegal for these ride-sharing services to charge passengers an individual fare when carrying multiple people in one vehicle. If the companies would like to add a carpool feature, they first have to request an adjustment to their existing permits with the CPUC or petition the state legislature to modify the law. Uber, Lyft and Sidecar all unveiled carpool features last month. The three companies say the feature lets strangers in multiple locations, but heading the same direction, share rides and split fares — saving passengers up to 50 percent per ride."
This news arrives just as Uber gave in to the demands of striking drivers who claim the company is undermining their ability to earn a livable wage.
Minicab companies.
They are not 'ride sharing' or 'car pooling' or anything even similar.
The business model is old and well established,at least in london.
It means a cab service that does not use fully licensed drivers and vehicles, and cannot be just hailed on the street (must be booked).
The fact that they take most of their bookings from phone apps/online makes no difference at all.
It is just a private hire of transport service - they dont use cab ranks, they cannot pick up people who hail them.
Perhaps if they had admitted this to begin with, they would not have faced the legal hurdles they have.
Laws should be against the law.
Don't hurt anyone, don't lie or steal from anyone and don't crap where we all live. There might be a few more, but probably not too many. All the rest is nonsense.
And people got killed, imprisoned, and tortured for doing it too. Lets not pretend the revolutionary war was not a war and England turned a blind eye and let it happen.
Are you suggesting that we should face the same? Get enough people together to support you and try it.
You do realize that they are already regulated and have gotten permits to operate in California right? They won the battle by complying with the law. I don't think this supports your supposition much though.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Except no, that's completely incorrect.
http://blog.uber.com/uberXride...
It takes a special license in order to inspect your vehicle?
No but you need to be able to prove you can do one to get the commercial license. Commercial drivers also have to take a physical before getting a licence.
As for the daily inspection(which I'd do just for cleanliness)
That just goes to show how ill qualified you are to do a real pre-trip inspection. Do you check your tire wear, belts, fluid levels, lights and signals, fluid leaks, etc. A pre-trip inspection is much more than cleanliness.
mechanicals should be 'inspected' every 3-5k or so miles when it gets an oil change.
A non-commercial driver can skip oil changes and therefore inspections and can ignore mechanics' advice. Commercial vehicles do not have those options. By the way a full time Uber driver can easily log 1K miles in a week.