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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.
I just need some gas money.
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.
I know everyone is all over Uber and and the other one because the cars are "nicer" and the service "better" than cabs. But I have a basic problem with Uber and Lift, and that is in the fakery of their liability claims. The facts are ( as presented in MANY news stories) if you get injured in an Uber or Lift car, those CORPORATE entities will deny virtually all liability. So you go after the driver, right? But guess what? He's not insured for paying passengers. SHELL GAME.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
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.
" and cannot be just hailed on the street"
Thats a good idea, make hail illegal. Can they do the same with straightline winds and tornados too?
If you're charging for access to X (for any given X), you're not sharing, you're selling (or leasing). And you don't get to be exempt from consumer protection regulations just because you're doing your selling on the web.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
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/...
When you do something for profit, your in business. Your legal liability changed. Your insurance needs changed.
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.
Who cares if Uber _is_ a cab company? What moral authority does the state have to stop consenting adults from forming their own contracts and doing business with each other?
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.
Now if they were going that way anyway and it costs them $6 in gas whether they're taking a rider with them or not, then they're actually ahead $5, since the trip, which would have cost them $6 of gas, now only costs them $1.
Carpooling 101.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Capitalism at work - an example of a government that's been bought and paid for. Yet another example of why too much of a good thing sucks immensely and capitalism moderated by the public having an equal say is better than the richest person getting to set the rules for everyone else.
Taxi unions pressure legislatures to enact the laws. The purpose is to limit competition, to make more money.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
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.
Apropos of nothing, when did we allow unelected regulators complete authority over the law?
It seems that every regulator now has the authority to declare something illegal, judge that an infraction has occurred, assess fines, and force collection.
If someone is in violation of a regulation, shouldn't the regulator present their evidence before a judge? Don't we want an unbiased 3rd party to chime in on whether the law is clear, whether the evidence merits a violation, and whether there are extenuating circumstances?
The policy of default judgement by fiat, with a "go to court to reverse it if you think you've been wronged" is a recipe for injustice and corruption.
When did we lose judicial oversight of our regulations? Did it happen slowly, or was it a sudden change?
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.
Two out of three correct "your" usages... a new record!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
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.
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.
Money changed hands. Tax man needs his cut or something bad might happen to you.
Much as I detest taxation, that's a separate issue -- "you can do X but not in exchange for money" vs. "you can do X, but if you get money for it, we'll be taking some of that money." Though in the case of the IRS, they'll be looking to tax you even if money didn't change hands. If you drive your co-worker to work and he buys you coffee in thanks, the price of that coffee is income as far as the tax man is concerned.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
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.
This is not what it’s about in general. It’s about providing a ride. Not picking up someone on the way you were happening to be traveling.
I'm astounded you can't find the whoosh there.
Almost all of law is based on the 'why'. If you kill someone, it starts to really matter 'why'. On purpose? By accident? For profit? All very different scenarios, and treated differently under the law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Right - guilty mind. "Why" matters.
Giving your friend a lift is different from organising a car pooling system at work, which is different again from creating a business around sharing rides. All the same 'X', but different 'why's'.
Let's say you have kids, and they misbehave - or fight - or get out of bed wailing in the middle of the night. The 'Why' really matters, doesn't 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?
You have to always consider affected third parties that aren't part of the contract. The state's obligation is to protect their interests. You just have a bunch of "consenting adults" exposing the rest of us to their runoff and other dangers.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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.
Those are all wonderful reasons for voluntary government certification: anybody who wants to can go to the government and get some government seal of approval; I as a rider can then make a voluntary choice whether that certification is useful information or whether I want to throw caution to the wind and ride with uncertified drivers.
Your reasons simply don't justify compulsory government licensing.
Asshole. We could have gotten a +5 funny if you hadn't spoiled it.
But I, as Joe Driver, can't choose whether I want to share the road with a taxi driver who pulls 16-hour workdays out of greed or desperation. Unless, of course, some entity with sufficient power forces the taxi to take breaks.
And of course you're also ignoring the well-known fact that human beings are extremely bad at estimating risks. So no, you as a rider can't make an informed choice about whether getting a certified taxi is worth the hassle, especially since unlicensed taxi companies have every incentive to bombard you with misinformation, while bean-counters utilizing cold math can. So it's a choice between letting a preventable tragedy play out forever, or stopping it but possibly hurting someone's cherished delusions of grandieur.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Bullshit. Those groups defend the laws, but they don't exist until the laws are passed. Licensed taxi drivers are a creation of regulation, not the creators of it.
The laws get created because enough people get ripped off, killed, and otherwise hurt by a completely unregulated marketplace that politicians feel the need to take action. The environment and circumstances in which the regulations were passed are so long ago that knee-jerk libertarians can claim, with a straight face, that they really believe that someone with a medallion lobbied for a law calling for the creation of the medallion system, knowing nobody will actually be able to recall the real reasons.
In the majority of cases, the laws make sense and are obvious to anyone looking in that they have little to do with protecting monopolies.
- To reduce the risks of accidents, most taxi regulations generally impose requirements on the skills and abilities of drivers, though frequently these aren't more than those required to get a driving license to begin with.
- To prevent a taxi driver's mistake causing untold harm to a client who ends up an accident victim, taxi drivers are generally required to carry more insurance than normal.
- To ensure the taxi provides a predictable level of service, and hence avoid clients being ripped off, taxi drivers generally are required to implement a standardized fare schedule, and usually have to pass certain tests about knowledge of local routes.
In rare cases, there may also be a quota system to prevent an overload of taxis. At a surface level, this might seem like an attempt to enforce a monopoly, but in fact it's usually the result of city commissioners trying to regulate traffic in general. The poster child for the this kind of regulation is New York City. You can pretend, if you want, that the problem with NYC is that there are too few taxis as a result of the medallion system, but, well, I've been there. Those photos you see of a typical Manhattan street clogged in all lanes by nothing but yellow cabs? Those aren't staged.
So no, licensed taxi drivers did not create the licensing system. Insured taxi drivers did not demand to be insured. Trained taxi drivers did not demand training requirements. And the Linux kernel never created Linus Torvalds.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
That is called running a business.
And we cant have that now can we. Unless you can pay off the legislature to protect your business.
This country was created on little ventures like this, squelching them due to others paying to keep them out of the market seals our fate as a nation.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And how is that different from sharing the road with any other tired driver? How do I know you don't drive tired because you are overextended on your mortgage and are rushing from one job to another? Or running a delivery business on the side?
If that's your justification, then let's introduce a system in which everybody is required to state the purpose of their trip and the amount of hours before they take their care out, perhaps combined with sleep tracking. Only safe trips for a list of approved purposes would be allowed! How about it?
Again, how does that justify limiting the number of cabs? That's what licensing does.
Furthermore, Uber is actually better that public licensing in that the company (unlike the licensing commission) faces potential liability, every ride is tracked, and drivers and passengers give each other feedback. No public licensing scheme has anything like that level of tracking and accountability.
Another problem with that argument is that taxi commissions (and licensing commissions in general) are no more qualified at estimating risks and have no demonstrated track record at reducing risk. The only thing they achieve is lining their pockets.
Furthermore, if the principle is for the government to keep me from stupidly doing things that are risky, why start with taxi cab? Riding an unlicensed cab is a very safe activity compared to having sex, riding a bicycle, skiing, or climbing a ladder. If anything, Are you suggesting that we outlaw all those other activities unless people get a government license? I don't want to live in that kind of society.
Sorry, but you are full of it. Taxi licensing does not improve safety at all, and the principles by which you and others attempt to justify taxi licensing are incompatible with living in a free society.
When the Uber driver has to make the decision to get the brakes fixed or pay rent, without mandatory inspections, which one do you think they will choose? If you don't think it is about safety you have not worked in the cab industry.
And we cant have that now can we. Unless you can pay off the legislature to protect your business.
What I disagree with is one business getting a lower level of regulation that another business doing the same thing when the only difference is that one business is falsely calling themselves "sharing". Uber does not want a level playing field because they want to keep all their advantages (the ability to pick high use times, ability to discriminate, lower safety standards, little consequence for breaking rules, etc).
None of them require government licensing to engage in; that's what we are talking about here.
Crony capitalism and lobbying are an inherent feature of licensing schemes (as is a failure to be effective at what they were originally justified by). All licensing scheme have them, and economists understand pretty well why they have them. Proposing licensing schemes on the premise that you can make them free of crony capitalism and lobbying is like trying to legislate pi to be 3.
(Even if crony capitalism and lobbying were not inherent features of licensing schemes, denying some people licenses and increasing the cost of operating a business are also inherent features of even an ideal licensing scheme, both of which limit the number of providers.)