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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.
Governments today restrict trade just like the church used to restrict speech. We think we are free because we can say what we want but we are not free. We cannot trade with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Freedom to trade is as much a threat to the authority of the modern Hobbesian state as speech was to the church when Galileo was alive. That's why you need permission to operate a carpool. In the future, when the world is more enlightened, freedom to trade will be as much a basic right as speech is today. No higher authority should be able to make it illegal for consenting adults to interact with one another.
Why do you need to be "fully licensed" to have someone pay you to drive somewhere
Why do you need to be fully licensed to cook food for someone?
don't need anything special to, you know, actually carpool with someone or drive a friend of a friend you don't even know to the airport?
You also don't need anything special to cook a meal and give some of it to a friend of a friend you don't even know. That would be sharing. When you add the exchange of money in excess of costs and cooking to order it becomes a restaurant and subject to health and safety laws.
Part of the licensing of cabs is the safety of the cabs. For example drivers are required to inspect their vehicles daily and have them inspected by an independent company every six months. Part of the driver's license is the ability to do the pre-trip inspection. There are also limits on the number of hours a commercial driver can drive. If drivers cet caught too many time their commercial license is pulled. You can do that with a non-commercial license.
Taxi unions pressure legislatures to enact the laws. The purpose is to limit competition, to make more money.
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The fact that people aren't in the position to audit their books and look to see that they're in compliance with reasonable safety standards.
The point here is that the government is in a much better position to do things like that than idiots like you seem to think. Contracts only work when both parties have the option of full due diligence and people aren't going to be in the position to do so when it comes to ride share apps. Especially in cases where the drivers are independents who may or may not be properly overseen by the party brokering the transactions.
The main differences between Uber and true ride share programs are profit motive and frequency. A true ride share program does not make a profit for the company or the drivers. When the driver is making a living by carrying passengers it is for profit and therefore no longer sharing. Profit gives a motive for cutting corners and decreasing safety. Frequency comes in the fact that the driver makes one trip while Uber drivers make several. The more the driver is on the road the bigger chance of an accident.
If you use $6 in gas and they pay you $12 then there is $6 profit. What you deliberately miss is that Uber drivers would not be making those trips if not paid for them.
If you have someone over for dinner and they pay more than their share or the groceries that go into the meal, are you running a restaurant for profit?
No. But if many different people come over, you cook to order and charge more than the cost of ingredients and energy then you are a restaurant.
Allowing someone to piggyback on something you are already doing and contributing to the cost is sharing. Doing something specifically at the request of someone else and charging more than the costs is not sharing. That is called running a business.
I guess I don't get the mathematics of poverty. If I'm going somewhere with a friend, I was already going there anyway and wouldn't charge them gas money. I'd only charge if I was taking them somewhere I had no intention of going and I wanted to be a dick about it.
No - in reality if regulation of cabs is removed, the worst of them will dominate in the short term ($5 cheaper you say! I'm in!) - until their unmaintained and dangerous vehicles cause a serious accident. And then the regulation will be re-introduced amidst a public outcry, and we'll be back where we started from.
Would you deregulate the airline industry too?
Well, for starters, it's expected to enforce these contracts. Every legally binding contract has the state as a third party.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
We already did. Seemed to work out okay.
Not saying we should do it to the extent you describe, but surely there's some room in there to make the whole thing suck less. People don't use services that are bad, and lots of people are using Uber, Lyft et al. There must be a middle ground between cab cartel protectionism and the the fly-by-night-itude of these services.
You should turn signatures off.