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Calif. DMV Back-Pedals On Commercial-Plate Mandate For Ride-Share Drivers
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that
In an abrupt U-turn, the California Department of Motor Vehicles late Friday retracted its finding that drivers for ride-hailing services like Uber, Lyft and Sidecar must obtain commercial license plates.
That determination — based on a 1935 state law — ignited a firestorm of criticism from the San Francisco startups and their supporters as stifling innovation. Commercial licenses are cumbersome to obtain, meaning they could impede the companies’ growth, which relies on getting new drivers, many of whom work just part time, into service quickly. And commercial registration probably would have necessitated that drivers get commercial insurance, which is significantly more expensive than personal auto insurance.
Republican Assembly members threatened legislation over the “nonsensical” interpretation if the DMV didn’t reconsider its stance before Feb. 17.
Now the department says it will do just that.
That doesn't mean drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft can expect to be left alone by the DMV, though, which according to the article "will meet with regulators and the industry to work through the issue."
I don't have a problem with the driver not having commercial insurance. However, in that case the company needs to insure the driver when "on duty".
Well, Uber at least already does this. However, your normal insurance company might refuse to cover you at all, defining the activity as commercial and thus outside of your policy. Then you won't have the legally mandated-and-approved minimum required insurance, and you'll be driving uninsured and thus illegally. Technically, probably pretty much all of this activity is illegal because of restrictions on commercial activity in personal liability insurance policies.
Whether the insurance companies should be allowed to do that to you is the real root question which we need to answer. My argument is that if someone isn't safe enough to drive people around for money, then they're not really safe enough to drive at all. If we need more stringent driving tests and vehicle inspections before we permit anyone to drive for any purpose, then okay, let's have those. But there's nothing transformative about accepting money for an activity: the activity remains the same. You are basically required to make some money to not be a criminal — homelessness is more or less illegal, and having a home requires some money due to taxes at the minimum. In that light, any restraint of trade which is not absolutely necessary is abhorrent, since it interferes with the citizen's ability not just to exist at all, but also to exist within the law.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What is unfair about how commercial licenses are handled?
That you can get it yanked for trivial moving violations commited when not even driving a commercial vehicle, of the type that people regularly engage in. This is only really a problem because the court has the right to deny you the right to go to traffic school even if you weren't driving a commercial vehicle (or with commercial purpose) at the time. People don't usually go to traffic school because they committed an infraction through ignorance, they typically knew what they were doing was illegal, so there's really no grounds for closing this particular loophole to these people. It's wrong because especially if your livelihood depends on it, but really in any situation, you shouldn't be held to a higher standard than anyone else while operating non-commercially. And that's only because everyone should be held to the same standard while driving, regardless of reason. We're told over and over again that it's a privilege and not a right, but some of us seem to be more privileged than others.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hmmm.. I'm curious as to how many of the people are declaring the income from the ride sharing to the IRS (or CRA for Canada, or whomever is the taxation authority in the region where they're operating). Followed by how many are deducting vehicle expenses from the income, etc.
My wife used Uber once. The vehicle was not clean, the driver was (in her words) creepy, she didn't like his driving, and he insisted on playing music she thought obnoxious. All in all, she quite unhappy with the whole experience. She insists that we'll be staying with taxis.
Purely anecdotal . . . search the Net and you'll find many more stories attesting to the exact opposite. And good for her . . . that's her choice. My choice (and the choice of many others) is to never take a taxi again. The insane growth of the ride share industry, however, is proof positive that people are readily embracing any alternative to the gov't-sanctioned artificial scarcity known as medallion-based traditional taxi services.
So, what's to stop an insurance company from working with the ride share companies to offer up commercial coverage to anyone driving using the company's ride share app? Some smart insurer is going to go down this path and make a lot of money. Certainly, with almost a million drivers, someone like Uber would have the clout to negotiate the lowest commercial rates on the planet. That would be absolutely no different than what taxi unions have been doing for decades, just at a larger scale. The only difference in this case, apparently, is that it's OK when a union working under a gov't sanctioned artificial scarcity (medallions) does it, and absolutely horrific and unfair when an evil corp like Uber does it.
I've never been asked for far I drive in the last 15 years of having auto insurance. Even when I had commercial insurance for a few years.
No, but money changing hands (commerce) impacts whether it is "commercial", and requires a commercial license.
"Impacts", perhaps. But it's not definitive. Especially in California.
For instance: I bought a pickup truck, to use as a tow vehicle for my camper and my wife's boat. Then I discovered that CA requires pickup trucks to be tagged with a (VERY pricey) commercial license, regardless of whether they're used for business. (You CAN petition to tag a particular pickup truck as a personal vehicle - but are then subject to being issued a very pricey ticket if you are ever caught carrying anything in the truck bed - even if it's personal belongings or groceries, and regardless of whether you're being paid to do it. (Since part of the POINT of having a pickup truck is to carry stuff home from the store this would substantially reduce its utility.)
The one upside is that I get to park for short times in loading zones.
If we aren't going to require commercial licenses for commercial driving, then why even have them at all?
And if we ARE going to require them for clearly personal, non-commercial vehicles that happen to be "trucks", why NOT impose this requirement on putatively commercial vehicles that happen to be cars as well?
The real answer to your question is "because the state wants the tax money, and the legislators and bureaucrats will seek it in any way that doesn't threaten their reelection, reappointment, or election to higher office" - in the most jerrymandered state in the Union. The Uber case is one where an appraent public outcry arose, bringing the bureaucrats' actions, and public outcry about them, to the attention of elected officials.
The full form of the so-called "Chinese curse" is: "May you live in interesting times and come to the attention of people in high places."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Wow! Really?!
That's just one more argument against living in California then.
IMO, the *real* reason for commercial licenses was the concept that commercial drivers are driving much larger vehicles that require special training/skills to operate safely on the roadways. (Your average licensed driver can't just hop into an 18-wheeler and operate it. They'd likely not even be able to figure out the transmission with as many gear as it has!) And the ability to properly back one up into a loading dock isn't something that comes without training either.
A vehicle anyone buys at a regular car dealership and uses as a "daily driver" for things like commuting or trips to the grocery store should NOT require a commercial license.
The states ALL want tax revenue, but there are ways to go about it that make relative degrees of common sense to citizens. When they start making unreasonable, illogical demands, it's time to get that changed or consider moving to a more reasonable place.
Actually, a lot of the state's got rid of the air brake endorsements. I was completely shocked when I was purchasing a class 7 medium duty single axle box truck that came stock with air brakes as it's a non-CDL truck and I was under the old assumption that the air brakes made it a CDL truck because of the endorsement. My state got rid of the requirements and I can no longer find them on the FMCSA website and a search shows a lot of other state's do not bother any more.
I think it has to do with technology that is mandatory now like ABS and self adjusters. But I have no idea why it went away or when it did.