Slashdot Mirror
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.
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/...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.