Carpooling illegal in Ontario?
November 12th, 2008[ General ]
This story broke today, “Carpooling Illegal? PickupPal Learns the Hard Way“. It’s embarrassing enough that this happened but the fact it was covered on TechCrunch means the world is reading it which means we look like idiots the world over.
Why is it illegal? Bottom line, it gets in the way of bus company profits. It’s a great example of mixed interests and who really influences legislation and policies. Unfortunately the environment isn’t a for profit venture with lobbyists and powerful unions.
We fined a company that operates this service around the world, in 104 countries. That’s embarrassing. The specific fine? The company that was fined is reporting that it was for a shared ride from Toronto to Montreal for $60. They claim they made nothing off of the ride and were fined $11,336.07, not including their legal fees.
The ridiculous list of requirements you must satisfy in order for your ridesharing to be considered legal?
“The only way you can ride with someone is if you meet ALL of the following extremely impractical set of specific criteria:
- You must travel from home to work only – (Not Home to School, or Home to the Hospital or the Airport)
- You cannot cross municipal boundaries – (Live outside the city and drive in – sorry you cannot share the ride with your neighbour)
- You must ride with the same driver each day – (Want to mix it up go with one person one day and another person another day – no sorry cannot do that – must be same person each day)
- You must pay the driver no more frequently than weekly – (Neighbour drives you to work better not pay her right away just in case she drives you later on in the week)”
Didn’t we recently install a series of HOV lanes in Toronto? I’m sure I’m naive but wouldn’t the best way to make use of those lanes be to support, and encourage, businesses that facilitate carpooling instead of fining them?