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Texas Regulators Crack Down on App-Driven Hauling Service
According to the Austin American-Statesman, it's not just ride-sharing companies like Uber drawing attention from regulators, at least in Texas, but also a similar service that's hauling goods rather than people. In a letter demanding that Austin-based Burro cease its phone-coordinated delivery service, Texas Department of Motor Vehicles
director of enforcement William P. Harbeson says that "[a]nyone moving household goods in a pick-up truck or other type or size of vehicle for hire is required to register" with the Department, "and show proof of insurance in the amounts required by law." According to the letter, this includes not just professional or even regular haulers, but also people moving a piece of furniture bought at a garage sale for pay; considering the number of people offering that kind of service on Austin's Craigslist, or in the parking lot of home supply stores like Home Depot, it seems like a regulation that will put a dent in the wallet of quite a few people. Burro, for its part, says its providers "are backed by $1M in insurance" — more than can be said for one of the obvious substitutes, which is relying on friends or acquaintances with a roof-rack and some bungie cords.
For moves of significance, should be requiring $1M insurance and webcams in the trucks. Stealing shipments from moving companies (sometimes with inside men) is big business.
For moves of one piece of furniture with value $1K, should be requiring a photo of the vehicle and guy be texted to law enforcement before loading. Done.
So, essentially, they are talking out of their ass.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I have a couch, you have a pickup. Does it matter if I've known you for 20 years or if I give you $20?
Another case of something being perfectly legal if done for free (your friends helping you move or giving someone a ride) or by yourself (ripping your own[ed] media, or recording television services you subscribe to), but the moment money changes hands, everyone wants a cut. Utterly sickening. I guess they better crack down on paying anyone with beer/food as well.
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As a former (1992-99 Boston MA USA) regulator, I smile. Regulator jobs were created because the average person didn't have access to information and it was worth it to pay taxes to hire people to regulate the service providers. The other two parts of the job were raising income for the state and protecting the commercial services / upstream market, but from Upton Sinclair times the protection of the consumer was the regulatory driver.
Protecting the consumer ordering the service is disrupted. The reputation (likes/dislikes/negative feedback) model does the equivalent of what Ebay did to print journalism. Print news made 1/3 from subscriptions, 1/3 from ads, and 1/3 from classified (my great grandparents-parents worked in newspaper market).
The newspapers were slow to embrace online classifieds because it wasn't in the marketplace they had cornered.... and they lost it. Regulators are now like new editors, they know the feedback system protects consumers, and they also know that's 1/3 of their jobs. I suspect most regulators are less adept than news editors.
Gently reply
great, until you hit a pothole and kill the guy in the car behind you on the highway
i don't know about regulating hauling, but i wouldn't mind seeing the police pull over and arrest some of the flimsy crap i've seen barely secured to trucks and SUVs going 70 in the highway
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes, this is less convenient, but the loss of convenience is incurred by the customer, who made the voluntary choice to go with the unregistered unlicensed option. They always had the choice of hiring a licensed mover instead.
but the loss of convenience is incurred by the customer, who made the voluntary choice to go with the unregistered unlicensed option.
No, the loss of convenience is also incurred by the following car that is damaged by the junk falling out of the pickup.
This is a very different situation from Uber, since there are no "medallions" or other market limiting restrictions. Just a reasonable demand for proof of insurance. Since Burro claims they already have the insurance, this is not an onerous demand in the least.
A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move a body.
Have gnu, will travel.
Devil's advocate:
One reason they demand proof of commercial insurance is an obvious one. What happens if they decide to help move, and some glitch on their part strapping down a motorcycle causes it to fall over, then smack the sides of the truck, destroying the other stuff inside?
With most trucking places, you file a claim, call it done. Without insurance, you have to go to court, and may not even get a chance at scoring damages.
There are also commercial licenses in Texas for truck driving. Using a service that doesn't use CDLs may be cheaper... but it is against the law.
The last time I moved, the insurance included with my move was 60 cents per pound - for any coverage beyond that, I had to purchase supplemental coverage. So if they drop your 50 pound $1000 TV, they'll pay you $30.
forgetting to secure your load and killing innocent people, how civilized
Putting an improperly secured table in the back of a pickup truck which may or may not be properly maintained with adequate brakes, may not have the load properly distributed, may be overloaded, and may not have a driver trained to deal with that, is dangerous. To the driver and, more importantly, to other road users. Now on ordinary person moving a friend's table will do that once a year, if that. Little aggregate risk. But someone doing it off-the-books commercially from the lot at Home Depot might make three or four such runs a day, every day. Much bigger aggregate risk, which is why there is different insurance for it and why there are safety, weight, size, loading and driver training regulations which are enforced by law enforcement (there is even a special unit that does it, alongside Highway Patrol).
And garage, beef, mutton, RSVP, et al are French words (et al is Latin), except when they're so commonly used in English that they become English. Burro is one of those words, although a case can be made for calling it Spanglish, since it's only commonly used in the southwest.
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary." - James Nicoll
So because powerful companies manage corruption, we should just give up on regulating everything?