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California deems carpooling via all ride-share services illegal
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- tswartz 12y agoFrustrating to see another letter from CPUC trying to slow Uber and Lyft down. How can CPUC deem this a bad thing? Carpooling means less ubers/lyfts on the road so less traffic and pollution. I've used Lyft Line numerous times and really enjoy it.
- kevinkimball 12y agowhy does CPUC care about traffic or pollution?
- hack_edu 12y agoMost likely because they are the office of government in charge of administering the roads...
- kevinkimball 12y agono... that would be the California DOT
- sliverstorm 12y agothe 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. It seems pretty clear to me. CPUC isn't against multiple passengers in the same car. They are against billing those passengers individually, for whatever reason that rule was originally enacted. Perhaps to prevent cabbies from charging pairs of passengers $4 each when a single passenger would be charged $5.
- spindritf 12y agoMaybe I'm missing something but this doesn't really make the issue any clearer. Why? What's the rationale? And why is tswartz being downvoted?
- rgbrenner 12y agoAnd why is tswartz being downvoted? Don't know.. maybe because he thinks a law that is 20 years old was somehow written specifically to attack Uber/Lyft?
- sliverstorm 12y agoIt's either that, or he feels the law should not apply to Uber/Lyft.
- tswartz 12y agoSo if it is illegal to charge people individually to carpool, how do the airport shuttle vans operate? [serious question]. They charge everyone separately and everyone rides together.
- zorpner 12y agoAirport shuttle vans typically operate under a passenger stage corporation permit and charge a flat-rate fee per-person for transport. Charter-party carriers (which is what Uber/Lyft/etc currently operate as in CA) charge based on mileage or time and are prohibited from individual charges for multi-person rides (with a bunch of exceptions, like if they're in Lake Tahoe or if they're going to or from a hot air balloon).
- anigbrowl 12y agoIt's not so much that they're deeming it a bad thing, as that nobody bothered to consult them before going live with the service, as they are legally required to do. If people have a problem with a service and don't get satisfaction, they (or their attorneys) typically call up the CPUC and say 'why are you letting company X get away with this?' which is why companies are supposed to apprise the CPUC of what services they're offering in advance. I'm not a big fan of CPUC (for example I think they have far too cosy of a relationship with PG&E), but they're not making it up as they go along.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> How can CPUC deem this a bad thing? CPUC isn't deeming it a bad thing, its deeming it an illegal thing. While part of what the CPUC does is adopt regulation, this isn't that kind of action -- this is the CPUC looking at the law adopted by the legislature that it is charged with enforcing, looking at the action going on, and saying "this action does not comply with the law; under the law as it stands, you must apply for a different permit to do this action. Or you can ask the legislature to change the law." This is not a judgement of good/bad. (You will find such judgement in regulatory actions where, given the law, the CPUC must choose what regulations to adopt to implement the law given the discretion it has within the law.)
- andrewguenther 12y agoThey didn't get the permits they needed to run the service. I'm getting so sick of people whining every time "the man" steps in to enforce the rules which these "disruptive technologies" didn't even bother to read. Not every law is absurd and intended to block innovation. C'mon people, it's just a fucking permit.
- glenra 12y agoMaybe not every law is absurd and intended to block innovation but these laws most certainly are. It's a permit that the authorities don't have to grant and won't grant in exactly the cases where the new service is most needed. These laws are intended to preserve for existing bus drivers and cab drivers some monopoly power that they haven't earned via providing reliable superior service.
- bodyfour 12y ago> won't grant Do we know that? In this case it seems that they just didn't bother to apply. Unfortunately, that seems to be the normal way these ridesharing companies operate: ignore the law knowing that when they're called on it the media will spin it as "Evil Government Bureaucrat Does Job" As others have pointed out, running the service inside of the regulation would probably require some changes on their part. In particular, I bet they won't be allowed to directly bill based on time or distance driven: if I'm on a bus that gets delayed in bad traffic or forced on a long detour I won't be asked for more money, but in a cab I would be. They should be able to still bill for distance-by-shortest-route though which should work well since it should be highly correlated, especially if they charge more during rush hour when travel is expected to be slower and thus costlier.
- glenra 12y ago> I bet they won't be allowed to directly bill based on time or distance driven Before jitneys were generally outlawed in the US a popular billing method was based on zones. You take a map of the city, chop it into regions and there's a flat charge for travel anywhere within one zone, a different charge to travel between two or more zones. The zone map and payment schedule can then be printed on a business card the driver hands passengers or painted on the side of the vehicle. This is a LOT cheaper and simpler and more predictable than a taxi meter and removes any incentive to take a longer or slower route, but regulators tend to hate it because without metering it's too easy for the cab driver to take payment in cash and avoid paying any taxes on the income.
- CodeWriter23 12y agoThe law exists so cabs don't charge per person. Pretty simple if you ask me.
- o0-0o 12y agoThen how are the Google and Faceblock buses legal?
- sliverstorm 12y agoBecause they are busses, not carpools?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- o0-0o 12y agoI remember when California passed the no smoking law for indoor establishments. One way around it was to make all of the employees of the bar or restaurant an owner in the business - therefore the law didn't apply because you didn't have any employees. Maybe if Lyft just made every user own .00000000000000001% of the firm, that would be a way around this asinine argument.
- andrewfong 12y agoThen you'd have to worry about securities laws (both California and federal). Also, I doubt there's some sort of employee-owner exception to the CPUC rules.
- Shivetya 12y agoor rent the car, which happens to have its own driver.
- mayneack 12y agoThat seems like it's not compatible with lyft and uberx if a driver wants to not be a full time driver.
- pkaye 12y agoIt would probably be easier to work with state legislators to change the laws.
- saosebastiao 12y agoSomeone, at some point in time, wrote this law. I would like to know what use case they had in mind when they decided this was a bad thing.
- ddebernardy 12y agoPossibly something written a century ago to thwart jitneys from getting in the way of public transportation systems: http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/uber-is-currently-fighting-the-battle-that-jitneys-lost-1629552478 http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/uber-is-currently-fighting-th...
- CodeWriter23 12y agoTo prevent your cab or limo driver from reading the fare, then multiplying it by the number of bodies in the car.
- patcon 12y agoSomebody please create a p2p ridesharing network and let's be done with the regulatory theater and jockeying of overvalued companies
- superuser2 12y agoThese have existed since the early days of the internet, and before that in bulletin board form. In fact, many were (are?) even run by state transportation departments.
- baddox 12y agoLike jitneys? They had their own share of legal troubles as well.
- WorldWideWayne 12y agoI think he probably means something that is a little more comprehensive and with higher visibility than the forum style ones like Craigslist or whatever.
- jmckib 12y agoWouldn't any such network need to collect a percentage of each transaction? Otherwise, what's the incentive to run the network competently?
- sliverstorm 12y agoAdvertisements. See: Craigslist
- staunch 12y agoCraigslist is centralized.
- nerfhammer 12y agocraigslist doesn't have reputation network for buyers/sellers
- kyro 12y agoReading things like this make me OK with startups bending an even breaking the occasional law if they're truly providing something of value. The legal system is rife with regulations and actors that are often not intended to benefit the public. There is nothing inherently right or efficient about it, and it's the oldest and most inflexible of the man-made institutions, behind Comcast.
- josho 12y agoAgreed, but I also hope that the regulators catch up and make sane decisions to correct the current environment. For example, at the forefront of my mind is the need for consumers and the state to have assurances that the drivers of these services have commercial insurance. Or that it truly is a ride-sharing lookup, not a taxi service. I'm sure there are other issues that need sorting, but as an outsider much of the taxi industry's regulations seem like they can be modernized for a post uber/lyft world.
- kyro 12y agoAbsolutely. I'm not advocating that we do away with the regulatory system, but that those drafting the rules look at startups like Uber/Lyft as signals and catalysts for change as opposed to reflexively treating them as threats on the system that Has Been And Always Shall Be. The world is changing rapidly, new needs and demands emerge, others die, and the red tape should be in constant reapplication, in tow.
- pmorici 12y ago"assurances that the drivers of these services have commercial insurance." I'm not sure about the situation in California but I looked into how taxis were insured in Maryland and it turns out they basically don't have insurance. They are only required to have a certain amount of cash in an account that acts like insurance if something happens. I believe the amount was around $30,000 which is very very little if something legitimately serious were to happen. Which is why I find it funny when people think taxis are some how better insured than ride share services.
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- LarryMade2 12y agoHmm I remember the blue ride-share info signs out on the highway years ago. but doing a web search cant seem to find info on them. Was wondering if there was any info in there about carpools sharing gas money and such... ahhh, here it is: http://www.rideshare.511.org/ http://www.rideshare.511.org/
- TallGuyShort 12y agoCan anyone explain how this is different from services like Super Shuttle? I get charged an individual fee, but the actual times are subject to other passengers and that can change at any time.
- greenburger 12y agoI suspect because SuperShuttle franchises have different terms for the TCP permit they carry. http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/transportation/FAQs/psgfaqs.htm http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/transportation/FAQs/psgfaqs.htm
- dragonwriter 12y agoActually, SuperShuttle is a PSC rather than a TCP, and the rule here applies to TCPs (including TNCs, which are a new subclass of TCPs to which Uber, Lyft, etc., belong.)
- dragonwriter 12y ago> Can anyone explain how this is different from services like Super Shuttle? Super Shuttle is a Passenger Stage Corporation (of the subtype defined as a "Door-to-Door Shuttle Service"), whereas Uber, Lyft, etc. are Charter Party Carriers, of the recently-defined subtype defined as "Transportation Network Companies".) The rule at issue here applies to Charter Party Carriers, and therefore does not impact Super Shuttle and similar services, just as there are many rules that would apply to Super Shuttle as a PSC that do not apply to Uber/Lyft.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> California deems carpooling via all ride-share services illegal The whole reason that charter party carrier laws and regulation are applied to Uber, Lyft, etc., in California is that they fall outside of the ridesharing exemption to those laws.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoSeriously, can we stop this pretend game of Uber and Lyft being 'ride-sharing'? They are no such thing. They're rides for hire, and pretending otherwise is insulting at best.
- jaunkst 12y agoJust got to transcend your humanity lol. If your 51% robot would the law still apply?http://geekologie.com/2014/09/how-hitchhiking-robot-survived-trip-acro.php http://geekologie.com/2014/09/how-hitchhiking-robot-survived...
- kibaekr 12y agoDidn't SF try to ban Airbnb a while back too? Whatever happened to that?
- lpolovets 12y agoDoes anyone know why laws like this exist? What's the value of regulating carpool ride-sharing and single-user ride-sharing, and what's the additional value of having separate regulations for each.
- kashkhan 12y agohow do you separate jitneys from paying rideshares?
- lpolovets 12y agoI'm basically wondering why the government thinks it needs to get involved in this kind of stuff at all.
- UK-AL 12y agoLots of laws are only there because established companies of lobbied for them. A large chunk of laws are anti consumer and anti worker
- djim 12y agothis law however, is to protect consumers. it prevents taxis from charging multiple people for the same ride (as separate fares). this law actually makes sense and should stay in place.
- thethrows 12y agoNo it doesnt. If the law stated that it was not possible to ask the full price, then it would protect consumers. But now it includes cases where the price is halved, which means I can't get cheap transport.
- bobcostas55 12y agoIf you want to look into it, the field that studies these things is called "public choice theory". It basically boils down to the fact that concentrated interests can impose diffuse costs (which they partially harvest in the form of rents) quite easily.
- PaulHoule 12y agoThis is insane. Looking at the parking and traffic and pollution issues that plauge the big coastal cites, this makes no sense at all.
- edgyswingset 12y agoThat's precisely why we should be bigger advocates of public transit than we are.
- bramgg 12y agoLyft has begun promoting this petition on Twitter: http://wh.gov/lh3L8 http://wh.gov/lh3L8
- beedogs 12y agoJust what California needs: more cars on the road. Idiocy. Plain and simple.
- sergiotapia 12y agoWhy is it that almost every time I hear about a stupid law on the web, 90% of the time it comes from California? Do the legislators there just love making people more problems?
- dragonwriter 12y ago> Why is it that almost every time I hear about a stupid law on the web, 90% of the time it comes from California? Because due to its population and economy, and other factors that increase the attention to what goes on in California, you (and the web) or more likely to hear about anything in California than similar things in other states.
- rhino369 12y agoWell, also California is probably the most regulated state.
- transfire 12y agoNone of this will matter is a decade or two. Autonomous taxis will take over, and then a handful of gents will rake in all the money and everyone else in the industry will be chronically de-employed.
- hindsightbias 12y agoAnd they'll blame technology. Uber/Lyft will probably try to litigate against autonomous vehicles.
- groby_b 12y agoUnless Uber/Lyft have management that is blind to reality, they'll be using autonomous vehicles. They have no long-term obligation to the drivers, and they have no business need for actual human drivers. What makes you think they won't be early adopters for autonomous vehicles?
- CalRobert 12y agoI spent a year in a relationship between SF and LA, which meant a lot of driving up and down the state. I almost always had one or two people sharing the ride with me who I found on Craigslist. Given that at least some of these people could have driven themselves but didn't feel like it and just wanted to split gas money, why in the world is this illegal??
- CalRobert 12y agoAlthough, reading the tone of the article it would seem that they aren't focusing on places like Craigslist, zimride, etc.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- burtonator 12y agothey should continue the practice and publicly shame any politicians who tries to stop them. Good luck running for an election again when you're destroying the environment with more cars. This is California!