Online Carpooling Service Fined In Canada 541
TechDirt is reporting on a disappointing development out of Canada. An Ontario transportation board has fined PickupPal, a Web-based service for arranging carpools, because a local bus company complained of the competition. (TechCrunch apparently first broke the story.) "[The transportation board has] established a bunch of draconian rules that any user in Ontario must follow if it uses the service — including no crossing of municipal boundaries — meaning the service is only good within any particular city's limits. It's better than being shut down completely, and the service can still operate elsewhere around the world, but this is yet another case where we see regulations, that are supposedly put in place to improve things for consumers, do the exact opposite."
No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
* You must travel from home to work only â" (Not Home to School, or Home to the Hospital or the Airport) * You cannot cross municipal boundaries â" (Live outside the city and drive in â" sorry you cannot share the ride with your neighbour) * You must ride with the same driver each day â" (Want to mix it up go with one person one day and another person another day â" no sorry cannot do that â" must be same person each day) * You must pay the driver no more frequently than weekly â" (Neighbour drives you to work better not pay her right away just in case she drives you later on in the week)
Personally, I'm confused as to how they came to these regulations. It's built on a faulty foundation that they could define carpooling as a very strict set of conditions- and then disallow any activity that didn't meet those conditions.
It just plainly doesn't make sense. If I want to share a ride with a complete stranger and split the gas, how is that any different from sharing a ride with a family member? According to these restrictions, I can't drive myself and my mom to the airport and split the gas cost?
It's my car and I'd much prefer to do with it what I'd please- I see absolutely no reason the government has any say in this!!
Other Canadian news:
-In a surprising decision by the Ontario Sandwich Authority, You may no longer split the cost of a foot long sub with somebody else and then each eat half, as it doesn't boost profits to our local sub shops...
Re:No sense... (Score:4, Informative)
It SEEMS like it does not make sense (Score:5, Informative)
This issue is almost already dead. It is OLD news, and there are changes to legislation going through the provincial(state) parliment to fix this problem.
The reason for these rules were to prevent UNLICENCED operators from running a bus or taxi service. Obviously the rules need to be changed, and they are.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracy works--in theory.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Democracy generally only requires plurality and not majority. (Though, I suppose, if there are only two choices, those are the same.)
It strikes me that in representative democracy, the difficulty of not electing idiots increases as the democratic pool increases. Your ability to influence federal elections (even if they didn't favor whoever is pseudo-arbitrarily chosen by the Democratic and Republican parties) is enormously smaller than your ability to influence local elections. It seems this is the big bene
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Not to mention lack of knowledge or care. I posted in another story how my parents pay land tax for local schools, yet someone in town who doesn't pay land tax (because they rent, etc.) will vote for a levy to gain school funds because it sounds like a good thing to them. It's not coming out of their pocket.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Informative)
The landlord pays property tax and that cost is passed along to tenants as part of the rent.
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Re:No sense... (Score:4, Informative)
Bullshit. Every rent-controlled lease/sublease I've looked at, was a lot cheaper than an uncontrolled apt. What am I missing here? Rent control can't possibly slow down new apt. development, since new apts are not rent controlled.
Note, I'm not saying that rent control is necessarily a good thing; I'm just saying that there doesn't seem to be evidence that it hurts me (a poor by NYC standards person looking for an apartment).
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It's not direct. The renter only sees the check they pay. Not where it's going. Then when the landlord raises rent, they complain that they are greedy bastards.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now actually I don't mind paying that tax , that is infrastructure, but I DO have a problem with targeted tax breaks to people with kids! If they get a tax break for fucking and having a kid and I don't, then I am effectively subsidizing their choice to have kids. That is not fair! If anything parents should be charged more since they use more resources.
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Re:No sense... (Score:4, Insightful)
The cold war is over, I don't think anyone would object if you used Soviet Russia itself as an example of what goes wrong with communism. It was a little more complicated than the animal farm's failure, for example, largely failing because it's not a good economic system, not because Gorbachev started walking on two feet instead of four.
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We don't have a true democracy. We don't get to choose who we vote for, we get to choose from a short list of candidates approved by those with economic power. We don't get to vote on issues, but have to vote for a representative we wouldn't have picked for ourselves if we'd been able to choose anyone we wanted. And finally, we don't get to revoke our vote when it no longer reflects our views, but are forced to hand our political power off to someone for years at a time with no recourse should they abuse
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No sense... (Score:4, Informative)
MADE THAT INTO TOTAL GIBBERISH for you
Fixed that for you.
The best description of all this I've ever read is the preface to Models of Democracy [amazon.com], a textbook by David Held. Held is a left-wing Brit whose politics I do not agree with at *all*. But his explanation of what the American founders were *trying to do*, and why, (setting aside the question of how well they succeeded) is second to none. For your sake, I strongly recommend picking this up from your local library and just reading the preface. You will actually learn something.
- Alaska Jack
Re:No sense... (Score:4, Funny)
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I live in Canada. Ontario, actually.
I have an appointment to see my MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament, for you non-Canadians) in a couple of weeks regarding another issue.
I'll sure as hell be letting him know I'm very unimpressed with this, and grilling him as to how the government can control what people do with their private cars, as long as no road regulations are broken.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, there we go again, conservatives crying about the need for deregulation. Poppycock, I say! I say the problem is a lack of regulation! Heap more regulations on top of the pile until it's all fixed, I say! It's a good thing PickupPal got stopped doing their illegal and immoral business practices. Someone has to stand up for the consumers, primarily those of the local bus company.
It's my car and I'd much prefer to do with it what I'd please- I see absolutely no reason the government has any say in this!!
Haven't you heard? Government = Democracy = We The People = We Can Tell You What To Do. Really, why do you conservative blowhards need to kick and scream every time Leviathan tells you, "No, You Can't, For The Greater Good?" You live in a complex society with complex interpersonal interactions, by living in our System you surrender your rights and dignity for the collective so you can live happily and freely. So what if the masses don't understand the implications and issues they vote upon the great deal of the time? At least we live in a marketplace of ideas, which I can tell you is a much better marketplace than the oppressive one with money and goods and slave wages.
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Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of cases where government gets it right, plenty of cases where businesses get it wrong.
The difference is that I have a choice of which private enterprises I do business with. Short of armed revolt or emigration I don't have that same choice when it comes to Government.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the US, you can change government officials and policy.
Tell that to all the people who voted for John McCain. Remember that Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner.... not a bad deal if you are one of the wolves but kind of a tough break if you happen to be the sheep.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a slashdot signature I've seen recently said:
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding who to eat for dinner. Liberty is the sheep having a gun."
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Until the Government takes the gun away from the sheep for it's "protection"......
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
So liberty means that the majority either starves or gets shot for the benefit of the minority. Not a bad analogy, actually...
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He's planning to close gitmo, for one.
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In the US, you can change government officials and policy.
Only in the majority.
Increasingly, minorities and individuals have absolutely no recourse. In a free country, a person in the minority would be free. But freedom is ending in the US. Majorities can take what they want, force people to do what they want, and prevent anyone from escaping their control.
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There are plenty of cases where government gets it right, plenty of cases where businesses get it wrong.
Amazingly enough, no one seems to be able to come up with examples of when the 'government gets it right', just plenty of cases where they get it wrong.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a saying:
A company does a hundred things wrong, and 1 right you only here about the 1 decision. The government does 1000 things right and 1 wrong, you only hear about the wrong one.
This is true.
A company just needs to to tralk about it's failures, and very few people know. The government has a lot of people whose sole purpose is to tell everyone when smething goes wrong.
I worked in the private sector for about 38 years, and now I work for a city government. I see aso many thing being done correctly, for the benefit of the citizen. I see projects that are completed on time and within budget all the time.
I see a lot less waste. (you can confuirm that by going to the labrary and looking at the numbers)
But a son as 1 thing goes wrong, it's headlines. Sometimes it
s becasue of a stupid elected official, sometimes it's due to unforseen factors. Like the price of rock suddenly going through the roof, sometimes it looks like a mistake because of a lack of facts.
Bear in mind even a moderately size City has 1000's of projects going on every day.
I ahve been pleasantly surprised working for the government. I have also learned a lot about why things seem so expensive.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Funny)
I have mod points, but strangely, see no "-1 Possibly Drunk" option...
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? Off the top of my head things that the Canadian gov't "gets right" (and I won't quibble over what the hell that means):
1) post office
2) fire department
3) law enforcement
4) military
5) liquor distribution
That's just a handful, and for the sake of discussion I'm leaving off a few high profile, controversial services that we'll just end up arguing about.
Here in Alberta, Canada, a couple that private corporations are busy screwing up:
1) electricity. This was de-regulated here a few years back, and prices sky rocketed nearly overnight.
2) liquor distribution. We handed it over to private enterprise and prices dropped. For a year. I just visited our neighbour, BC, where it is still government run, and they have as good availability (I was shocked to walk into a corner store at midnight and find that they had a fully stocked gov't liquor store open), and most items are a good 10% cheaper.
I don't actually have a problem with liquor distribution being privately run. It's not an essential service; but if the benchmark is "serving the consumer better", it failed.
I don't think having the government run everything would work out so well, but this canard that it's inherently inefficient and private enterprise always does it better has got to be put to bed.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
"2) liquor distribution. We handed it over to private enterprise and prices dropped. For a year. I just visited our neighbour, BC, where it is still government run, and they have as good availability (I was shocked to walk into a corner store at midnight and find that they had a fully stocked gov't liquor store open), and most items are a good 10% cheaper."
This is breathtakingly naive. *You are paying* for the availability and the relative "cheapness" of the government-subsidized liquor store ... and so is everyone else, *even those who don't drink*. The funds you pay are called "taxes." Furthermore, you are almost *certainly* paying *more* than you would if it were not a government operation ... as has been shown thousands of times, governments simply do not have the same incentives to achieve the same high levels of efficiency that businesses competing against each other do.
- Alaska Jack
Re:No sense... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Informative)
My point was that the ALCB was not being subsidized by taxpayer dollars, as you seemed to be asserting:
It wasn't just paying for itself, but contributing back to the budget, hence benefiting taxpayers.
Thinking about it, there may have been efficiency gains in that they controlled the full distribution chain, meaning fewer middle men.
Heck, I could even be wrong on this one - a fellow Albertan notes further down the chain that he thinks overall liquor has become cheaper. I still firmly stand by my assertion that government run is not inherently inefficient, and I'm rather tired of it being taken as an absolute truth, like gravity.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, here we go:
This isn't like an American company where it's turning a profit but only because of government bailouts and subsidies. They aren't a private entity at all. It's a branch of the government. There is no subsidy. If it turns a profit, that money isn't kept by the CEO. It goes into government coffers. If they turn a profit, it is a revenue source for the government. Therefore, the government can spend more and tax exactly the same. Thus, ALCB lowered taxes, or rather, allowed more government spending without raising taxes. There are cases of government run corporations that don't turn a profit. Back to BC again, BC ferries eats a loss. People want it privatized since it is using up tax dollars. The counter argument is that if it is privatized, the new corporate owners will terminate unprofitable runs. Therefore, the smaller BC islands will suddenly have no ferry service. This argument is not so cut and dry, as it's a pretty essential service to be able to get food in your grocery store! Remote towns need more roads to reach them, but the taxes they pay for those roads are the same as mine, even though my city needed less roads built to it to keep it connected.
Anyway, the previous poster is wrong. LCBO in Ontario, and BC Liquor in BC are actually slightly more expensive than the private providers in Ontario and BC. And they sure aren't open later! BC Liquor in particular is a very governmental type business. I think it's what, 10AM-4PM most days. Open till 8PM on Friday nights only. In BC if you wanted wine with dinner and it wasn't Friday, you had to go to a private store, at least if you worked a 9-5. The LCBO in Ontario is a bit better, they all seem to be open later, but have a lot less selection than say, The Beer Store.
In summary, you did pretend to have special knowledge by assuming that the province run stores were eating a loss and thus requiring government bailouts.
Re:No sense... (Score:4, Insightful)
Deregulation has worked great for the US banking industry.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
hey they all made millions, its only the taxpayers it didn't work for!
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
It would have worked if the feds didn't bail out the idiots. They'd be out of business by now.
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
Talking about more or less regulation (as the word "deregulation" does), is useless. A regulated market needs two things: Policy that makes sense, and exactly that minimum set of regulations necessary to reasonably implement that policy.
People who are for "deregulation" generally assume that we started with neither of those things, and so removing some regulation will make things less screwed up. Those against "deregulation" assume we started with a situation reasonably close to those things and removing some regulations will break everything. And you know what they say about assumptions...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Deregulation has worked great for the US banking industry.
Actually, it was over-regulation that broke the US banking industry. When you force banks to give loans to people without any means of paying them back, the banks are going to fail. If you just leave the banks to decide who they loan money to, they tend to make sure that their customer is able to pay it back before giving out this year's Christmas bonuses.
Re:No sense... (Score:4, Informative)
wrong. The "forcing" companies to make loans was only a few companies that were caught gaming the books. The feds choose to have them "help the poor" rather than levy appropriate fines. That said, they should have been harsh and shut down the FMs when they cooked the books years ago in spite of the harm because their cheating is what brought down the system. Mercy is what cause the banking crisis not regulations.
A standard "poor" FHA loan allows 7-9.5% interest when going rate for mortgages was 5.5%. Trouble was that they started "betting against" the sub par loans.. then they started loaning people with "good" credit vastly over extended sums to put them into loans rated for "poor" people (hence the zero down, interest only loans... hint "poor" don't get those... ever) Until they saturated that market. Realize they "bet against" those same people multiple times over (5-20 times the value of the amount borrowed!) They structured these "bets" like insurance, but just enough different to require zero regulation... until the market was saturated then when a small number couldn't pay the thing crashed.
In short, they took a punishment for not playing by the rules, pretended to do a "good thing", then continued to invent new ways to bend the rules on a massive scale while setting normal people up to fail.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
wrong. The "forcing" companies to make loans was only a few companies that were caught gaming the books. The feds choose to have them "help the poor" rather than levy appropriate fines. That said, they should have been harsh and shut down the FMs when they cooked the books years ago in spite of the harm because their cheating is what brought down the system. Mercy is what cause the banking crisis not regulations.
Uh, those few companies that you spoke are FannieMae and FreddieMac, who combined make up a vast majority of loans made in the US. They are pretty much in control of mortgages, student loans, auto loans, business loans, etc. So, by saying that it is "a few companies" is a bit of an understatement. But one point you don't dispute is that they were "forced" to give loans to people who couldn't pay them back, regardless of the rate.
However, you could have (should have?) pointed out that much of the problem
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This was on NPR a while back (Score:5, Informative)
I remember hearing about this story a few months ago on NPR (can't find a link, if someone else can it's worth it to listen to). IIRC, they had an executive from the competing company being interviewed.
Basically, his complaint boiled down to the argument that it wasn't fair that the bus company had to comply with a bunch of expensive regulations, but that a carpooling service didn't.
Re:This was on NPR a while back (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as the bus company is merely directing people to buses and not operating said buses, they have a valid complaint.
In the mean time, there is no equivalence.
Re:This was on NPR a while back (Score:5, Interesting)
A carpool is quite a bit different from a bus, provides an entirely different service in an entirely different manner.
In and around Tampa, Florida, the state will GIVE you a van and buy your gas if you get 4 or more people to ride in it 5 days a week (I think they're looking for people with 40+ mile commutes each way). Turns out to be cheaper for the state to supply the vans than for them to increase capacity on the roads clogged with single riders.
Re:This was on NPR a while back (Score:5, Informative)
For the record, I live in the same town ad the bus company that brought this all to a head (trentway-wager).
They had a point in their initial concern, however the way the transportation board handled this was all wrong. There were van operators who were unlicenced and unregulated, who basically bought large 10-15 person vans, and were advertising on PickupPal for "intercity transportation" (e.g. rides to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, etc.). They were abusing PickupPal to basically operate a Van and Taxi service. Unfortunately, instead of the transportation board finding out who those unlicenced operators were and cracking down and fining them, they decided to take their wrath out on the website and screw it up for everyone else who were following the "spirit" of the website.
Re:This was on NPR a while back (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlicensed van drives? As in they didn't have a drivers license? Or they didn't have some arbitrary piece of paper that said they couldn't drive around a bunch of strangers?
Re:This was on NPR a while back (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlicensed van drives? As in they didn't have a drivers license? Or they didn't have some arbitrary piece of paper that said they couldn't drive around a bunch of strangers?
Every jurisdiction that I know of requires special licensing for the driver and has restrictions on the vehicle (usually in the form of increased insurance coverage) for people or companies that conduct passengers in cars for money. They are called taxis|limosenes|buses.
Are you implying that taxies shouldn't be regulated?
It makes sense to limit carpooling so that operators are not calling themselves carpoolers to avoid regulations. That presumes that the taxi|bus regulations are rational in the first place.
However, the restrictions that the Ontario Transportation Board (or whatever it calls itself) has put in place are idiotic.
Re:This was on NPR a while back (Score:5, Informative)
Why are there so many pseudo 14 year olds on this site recently ?
I would imagine that if you enquire into the issue and dig right back to the beginning of the regulation, you will find that the public demanded some oversight of these private companies. Now ill-educated fools who think they have the answer to life itself (because they are 14 years and nearly 6 months old) are complaining about things that "we, the people" asked for.
If you're not 14 years old, start acting like it.
Shut down the FAA, let the airlines self regulate. Shut down welfare, turn all the streets into a ghetto. Shut down medicare, let the disease spread. Shut down all these things because they cost me money. I don't see any benefit. Me me me me me !
It really is the American disease. What gets me is the fact that you have no excuse for complaining. You actually have enough space to just say "fuck it" pack your shit together and live in the woods. But no, you'd rather run the country (badly) from your armchair while taking a large advantage from all the benefits bestowed by the things you want to get rid of. When you get that problem sorted out, you might find the politicians reflecting the people in a better light. Yes, you heard me. The reason Bush got in was because there are millions of people who think like he does. If you think that's good, I'm sorry for your descendants.
I didn't mean to pick on Bush, he is in illustrious company. But let's face it, he is the poster boy for WTF ?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
>A carpool is quite a bit different from a bus
The company in the article operates something that is not reasonably different enough from a taxi service, that taxi services could use their example to avoid paying taxes, commercial insurance, or requiring licensed drivers.
There's still no law that would prevent you from having a carpool. You can even negotiate with your riders for compensation. What you can't do is operate a service that is essentially a taxicab, without following the local laws that reg
Re:No sense... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's protectionism... same as import duties. These rules support the continued operation of an otherwise unsustainable business model (or enhance the profitability of one).
If this model is taking business from the bus company, then that says clearly that it's providing a service or cost-effectiveness that the bus company can't (or isn't willing to). What's a better model for capitalism than this, for driving change and improvement for the customer?
Further, I doubt that a large percentage of the carpooling service would be bus customers anyways... I'd bet that most of them weigh it against the option of driving their own cars. That's good for the environment - fewer cars on the road, and maybe fewer cars altogether.
The only reason this gets messy is because the drivers are taking money for the service, making them an unlicensed small business operator. There's gotta be a better way to address this than outlawing an otherwise good-for-everyone-but-the-bus-company service.
MadCow.
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It is indeed protectionism, absolutely, but not necessarily in the way you think it is.
The rules absolutely are draconian and absurd the way they're written, but I understand the intent. If there were no rules whatsoever, then we'd have a situation where someone could run an unlicenced taxi company or even a bus company. While I can't see that anybody is being harmed by ride sharing as intended by the carpooling website (and in fact there are considerable environmental and economic benefits) it might not
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It's been a while since I was actively flying, but as a private pilot, I was not allowed to carry passengers for hire or compensation (that required a commercial certificate at least). However, I was allowed to share the cost of a flight. That seems like an exactly analogous situation. If I recall correctly, one of the main factors in determining whether a passenger was paying for the ride or sharing the cost was whether the pilot would have made the flight without the passenger. If so, that's pretty go
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
As usual the situation is a little less ridiculous than the blogs make it out to be.
The bus company has a valid point that if I wanted to start a bus service but I didn't want to bother with things like safety regulations or hiring drivers with the appropriate license, I could easy just use the carpool site. The carpool site themselves were (they're not anymore) charging a commission.
The bus company says it's unfair competition because anyone with a car can set themselves up as a mini bus company without the expense of adhering to safety regulations. The transportation board's worry is that there will be a bunch of amateur, unregulated bus/cab drivers running around.
That makes sense (Score:4, Funny)
"The transportation board's worry is that there will be a bunch of amateur, unregulated bus/cab drivers running around."
That makes sense. You wouldn't want the bus drivers to have to share the road with a bunch of untrained amateur drives on the road.
Oh...wait....
Re:No sense... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No sense... (Score:4, Informative)
The point is it's a great idea to car pool and to coordinate that with others on a website. It's a bad idea for people looking to make a buck to co-opt the website and run unlicensed, uninsured and unsafe private taxi/bus service. That is what was happening here.
Re:No sense... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, some countries take that approach. Ever taken a gypsy cab in one of them?
Also remember, you are discussing something in a country that is not the US. Here in Canada we take a bit of a different approach. In the US, if something happened, the passenger or his family would just sue everyone they could think of. Here were like to take a bit more of a proactive approach and try to prevent tragedies.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>If I want to share a ride with a complete stranger and split the gas, how is that any different from sharing a ride with a family
>member?
It's not different until you operate a service that allows drivers to share rides with complete strangers for a fare.
Then you become a taxicab company, even if it's a non-profit one. You suddenly have the problems of personal versus public transportation insurance, accommodation for handicapped users, and tax liabilities. If you can somehow make an argument that Y
Re:No sense... (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I'm confused as to how they came to these regulations. It's built on a faulty foundation that they could define carpooling as a very strict set of conditions- and then disallow any activity that didn't meet those conditions.
They're not disallowing anything. They're simply defining a carpool. Something that doesn't fit into that definition isn't disallowed, it's just not officially a carpool.
If I want to share a ride with a complete stranger and split the gas, how is that any different from sharing a ride with a family member?
You're more than welcome to do that. The problem here isn't sharing a ride with a stranger. The problem here is a business facilitating that sharing. The decision is basically saying that they are not facilitating carpooling, by the legal definition of carpooling, and that therefore what they are doing is facilitating transportation of passengers in public vehicles. The problem is that operators of public transportation vehicles must be licensed to operate a public vehicle, which these drivers are not.
It's my car and I'd much prefer to do with it what I'd please- I see absolutely no reason the government has any say in this!!
They don't. Carry on transporting whoever you want. Even call it a carpool if you want. No one cares. But don't try to operate a business facilitating public transportation without the appropriate licenses.
You're Doing It Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought the government was only supposed to provide services that the private sector can't or won't provide with reasonable cost and quality.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on your type of government. The more you move toward socialism, the more the government is concerned with creating jobs through this sort of hackery.
Once you start protecting industries purely because they employ people, you're in trouble.
Right now in the US, it's the automakers. The traditional rationale for protecting them is because our national security requires the manufacturing base (in case we have to switch it over to tanks, for example).
But when the government props an industry up, it becom
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought the government was only supposed to provide services that the private sector can't or won't provide with reasonable cost and quality.
Which is exactly what's happening here - I'm sure if there was a private sector company that provided services to the bus companies like imposing draconian regulations onto carpoolers, the bus companies would never have needed to turn to the government to provide these services!
Re:You're Doing It Wrong (Score:4, Funny)
Outdated laws are being changed (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/bills/bills_detail.do?locale=en&BillID=2099 [ontla.on.ca]
Re:Outdated laws are being changed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Outdated laws are being changed (Score:4, Informative)
No, there isn't a glaring hole. The law specifically says you CAN use those devices, so long as you are not holding them.
If you can't use the device in a "hands-free" mode, then you probably shouldn't be the one trying to use it and drive. If you CAN (mount the laptop w/GPS somewhere you can see it, or rely on its "voice notifications"), then there isn't a problem. If you have to try holding a laptop w/GPS, and driving, then for safety's sake, you should probably just get a Car GPS like the rest of the Joe-Sixpacks, instead of insisting on making "one device do everything").
This seems no different than the rash of similar "No cellphone while driving" laws that have popped up in the states.
From the law:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A misguided bill.
There should be no law banning phones/TVs.
Just a reckless driving law. Does it matter why they were driving recklessly? What next, a specific bill to ban putting on makeup? shaving? reading a news paper? eating?
Getting that specific is needs, wasteful, leave loop holes, and harms any potential valid need to do thjose things.
Goooo Unions! (Score:3, Insightful)
Because nothing says "Good System!" like using your lobbying clout to get the government to shut down your more efficient competition.
If you can't compete, then you shouldn't be in the game.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There's nothing in either article mentioning unions even a single time regarding this story. You're a liar and a propagandist.
Okay I was wrong.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I read the link figuring that there must be some good reason for this law. It may be an outdated reason but I figure there must still be some reason. ,"You need to know how much to charge the government so you can give that money to the government?"
I was wrong.
Of course it reminds me of something that happened to me at work.
My company sold software to a Canadian government agency. They pay a yearly fee for updates and support. On day I got a call from the Canadian tax department. They wanted to know how much the update disks we where shipping to the other agency where worth. This was before the Internet was available to mortals.
Well six floppies so about six dollars. I told them the updates where free.
They kept arguing with me to tell them how much the updates where worth. It seems that they needed to charge tax the people that where receiving the updates.... I told them that IT WAS THERE OWN GOVERNMENT!!!!
The told me that it didn't matter. So I asked them this
They said yes, and didn't even laugh. In fact they where a little ticked that I couldn't see the logic in it.
I told them that they had just invented Taxabation and they hung up on me.
We talked to our clients and set up a bbs so they could download the updates from then on.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That does make sense. Clearly you ahve no economic and/or financial experience.
There is no 'The Government' there are a series of agency and people and accountability.
Your ignorance makes you look foolish.
Re:Okay I was wrong.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Okay I was wrong.. (Score:4, Informative)
It's out there becaus that's what Apple said [ilounge.com].
Specificly
How do you enforce this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they going to randomly stop cars with more than one person and question everybody? Or maybe they'll have undercover police. We could even have a new CSI CPU (Carpool Unit).
Article Biased... (Score:5, Informative)
The article is heavily biased, although this isn't terribly surprising.
Pickup Pal is a service that allows individuals to arrange not only carpools. Specifically, it allows drivers and passengers to arrange compensation for trips.
Does this remind you of anything else? Oh, yes, a taxi company (or bus company, take your pick) which is Trentway-Wagar's complaint.
The bus company, which TW is, as an organization that arranges for buses to transport passengers for money, is bound by a series of provincial vehicle travel laws which require its drivers to be insured, to possess the correct licenses for their vehicles, and so on.
There are, in fact, specific exceptions in the specified Acts for car-pooling, but it appears that Pickup Pal does not satisfy them for various reasons (which should actually be quite obvious, prima facie).
The difficulty is that Pickup Pal is obviously not merely offering a carpool service. They are also obviously not offering a public taxi service or a bus service, either, but the carpool service has a defined exception in the law.
The law, the board argues, exists to protect riders. Drivers are to be insured, carry the proper licenses for their vehicles, and so on. (Insurance issues, which is a major public interest in cases such as these, form a major part of the Board's concern. Insuring a public vehicle is very different from insuring a private car and the caps on insurance are often much higher.)
As a result, Pickup Pal was ordered to immediately cease taking any actions that would put them in violation of the Public Vehicles Act.
Pickup Pal argues that they have nothing to do with the service, that they merely arrange this. The Board does not agree, for good reason- a taxicab company could make an identical argument. Such an argument is unpersuasive. There is a compelling public policy argument to regulating public vehicles and carriers and so on. For abiding by these regulations, Trentway-Wagar incurs costs, and they found it unfair that another provider would be able to avoid the regulations and thereby avoid the costs- hence the charge of unfair competition.
The summary writes that the regulations are making things worse for the consumer. I beg to disagree. Unsafe public transportation is worse than expensive public transportation, and there is a compelling public policy reason for regulating public transportation for safety's sake- regulations that Pickup Pal did not abide by.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess I'd be a lot more interested in the facts from which you derive your conclusions rather than the conclusions themselves. It sounds to me like PickupPal is simply an electronic "ride board", and little more.
Re:Article Biased... (Score:5, Insightful)
Specifically, it allows drivers and passengers to arrange compensation for trips.
Does this remind you of anything else? Oh, yes, a taxi company (or bus company, take your pick)...
The difference being that the taxicab/bus company itself makes money on each ride. PickupPal does not receive any money from the passenger or driver. Are they going to fine the phone company when I call my friend up and we arrange a road trip where he agrees to pay for half the gas? What about the message boards at colleges where drivers and passengers arrange for long trips back home? Sue the college?
Specifically, it allows drivers and passengers to arrange compensation for trips.
Between the driver and passenger, which is a private transaction that has nothing to do with PickupPal. It is not a transaction between the driver, passenger, and 'arranging' entity (taxicab company). Now, if you want to go after a driver because he is accepting money for a ride without having a taxi license, then go ahead. But going after PickupPal is just absurd.
Re:Article Biased... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, part of the information in evidence was that, in fact, up until fairly recently PickupPal did make a 7% commission.
However, I'm not sure that's necessary in this case. PickupPal is still making money off of this service of connecting riders to drivers (which, I'll point out is what a taxicab service does). PickupPal just has a different way of collecting that money now (via advertisements).
Not at all. PickupPal is an instrumental entity in this transaction. It acts like a broker. Just because the contract is between two parties doesn't mean PickupPal isn't in the business of arranging public transportation.
I refer you to section 2(2) of the Public Vehicles Act, which is cited in the Board's decision:
I Live in Ontario (Score:5, Interesting)
I have never heard of these regulations. I doubt very much they are enforced at all. The fact that the got fined is only due to a complaint. If A) the public was aware, or B) the Premier was aware of those regulations, it would be dead in a week. This is actually very stupid move by the bus company if they are really worried about competition. I mean really, the province just started installing car pool only lanes on the 401, are they going to now say they are not committed to this sort of activity. Silly.
If I were PickupPal I would not pay the fine and write two letters, one to our Premier, and one sent to the various mainstream media outlets also indicating a letter was sent to the Premier.
This will kill the fine, kill the regs, and likely promote PickupPal, and car pooling in general. That's a quadruple win I think.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This is a case of old regulations last updated over a decade ago being applied in an unexpected and silly, though legally consistent, manner.
There's already a bill in progress [ontla.on.ca] in the Ontario legislature to update this stuff, specifically, the changes to the public vehicle act about 2/3rds down the page.
Jurisdiction over the web (Score:3, Interesting)
seeing that PickupPal is a web based company, can't they just more their operations outside of the Ontario transportation board's jurisdiction and tell them where to shove their fine?
Similar Case In Germany (Score:4, Interesting)
Simple solution that lets them say "GFY" (Score:3, Interesting)
traceroute shows they're currently hosted on servers-etx.hgn.ca, which are located in Ontario, Canada.
Just move the server to another country, and tell the Ontario Transport Ministry to "Go Fuck Yourself", same as businesses in Quebec host their sites outside of Quebec and tell the Office de la langue francais "Mange la merde." The OLF always backs down when push comes to shove over the question of regulating internet content, since they don't have jurisdiction - the internet is regulated exclusively by the feds via the CRTC.
While they're at it, they should cite the CRTC regulations that make the internet solely federal jurisdiction, and again tell them to "Go Fuck Yourself - Twice."
Ontario is breaking its own regulations (Score:4, Informative)
Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
"[The transportation board has] established a bunch of draconian rules that any user in Ontario must follow if it uses the service â" including no crossing of municipal boundaries â" meaning the service is only good within any particular city's limits. It's better than being shut down completely, and the service can still operate elsewhere around the world, but this is yet another case where we see regulations, that are supposedly put in place to improve things for consumers, do the exact opposite."
Regulations ultimately act to benefit the regulated; not the public. The raise barriers to entry and protect incumbents. A Nobel Prize laureate in Economics pointed that out years ago.
In general, regulated industries can sustain higher prices and have less competition than unregulated ones. That's not o say regulation does not have a place; but to think it results in lower prices to consumers is wrong.
I'm always suprised... (Score:3, Interesting)
After getting no where with her, I pointed out to him what she had been saying. I have no doubt that they had a big argument about it because she now is adamantly against the idea of using the find a stranger in the parking lot method of carpooling. Some might think that I over stepped a line, but I really don't want to find out that she was found in a ditch raped an murdered. I know if I were a rapist, she would have easily been in the top 1% of target victim group because she is attractive, to small to put up a big fight, and was willing to get into a strangers car.
Simply put: Carpooling with strangers IS hitchhiking.
Each person needs to evaluate the risk/benefit of hitchhiking for themselves, but they should not delude themselves into thinking that they are not the same thing just because it now has a PC name and the government encourages it.
The Carpooling Hustle (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently driving is like sex in Canada.
The bus is like a strip club. Everyone gets together for legally sanctioned transportation, but none of the customers get to drive, and it's not as much fun as a real car ride.
Way more going on here... (Score:4, Insightful)
TFA is a little one-sided.
First, the regulations that exist are not there to stop carpooling, they're there to ensure bus and taxi services are safe. This isn't some theoretical problem, either, as a number of people were killed in an unlicensed and uninsured van in southern Ontario a few years back. (Would they have been alive if the service vehicle had been through a safety check, or if the operator of the vehicle was properly licensed? I don't have those details, and I can't find the article I was reading about it this morning). The problem is that the regulations are very broadly defined, and a lot of car pooling falls under them.
The Ontario government has been actively working to fix the laws for a while now, so they don't apply to car pool services (http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/09/02/ot-carpool-080902.html). But, how to write a law which covers a taxi, and doesn't cover car pooling? Tough to get right, but they are working on it.
Second, the site in question, PickupPal, was being used by a couple of companies in southern Ontario who were selling rides from Ottawa to Toronto, and the reverse direction (a 6 hour drive), putting multiple people into vans. So, essentially, running a bus service. This is a far cry from car pooling, and obviously these companies should fall under the bus regulations. Should the government be fining PickupPal, or fining these unlicensed bus services directly? Hard to say without knowing all the details involved.
PickupPal, though, called the ruling a victory, so they're obviously happy with it.
Re:Canadians carpool? (Score:5, Funny)
They ride moose up there. They're bigger.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Walking (Score:5, Interesting)
This sort of reminds me of a short story that Asimov wrote about a boy who decided he no longer wanted to use the transporters in every home in order to go to school. He preferred walking to school each day instead, much to the horror of his mother.
It just... piqued my memory, I guess.
Re:Walking (Score:4, Interesting)
Even more so Bastiat's story about the candle maker wanting to outlaw the sun for unfair competition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlemakers'_petition [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How coïncidental, there's an open jobposition for the local gay-insult-man here in Canada.
We're offering you this position, with a competitive wage.
All expenses for your travel and stay are ofcourse compensated for.
Eagerly anticipating your arrival...