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Ask HN: What is the legal status of ride sharing in the US?

8 points by llambda ↗ HN
I'm interested to know if there are legal boundaries to ride sharing in the US? Based on a question raised in the Ridejoy thread earlier, it was mentioned there that a service couldn't be a taxi service, presumably because of permit requirements. It also appears there's some Californian legislation that requires people commuting do so only to and from work and not leave state boundaries. I'm not a lawyer and I don't know the law in regards to this but these kind of guidelines seem a little strange to me. Is this commonplace? Could a service facilitate transactions between a person selling a seat and a person buying said seat or would that somehow be illegal?

5 comments

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eec
I'm not sure that it's legal or not but it is certainly widely adopted. I'd imagine that it becomes "illegal" once it's monetized beyond shared expenses. If you help pay for the gas/service of the vehicle, that's quite a bit different than paying for the service. Just my hunch.
twainer
I am not sure either, but I would agree. Insurance/liability and licensing are significantly more complicated when one is driving for a business and transporting passengers. So-called 'commercial' driver's licenses face much more stringent regulation and subject the driver to health+saftey standards.
JimmyL
I'm not sure if it's legal or not (or even whose jurisdiction it falls under), but I'd caution you that it's probably a lot more difficult than you'd think to determine if it's legal. When it comes to transportation, there are all sorts of levels of regulation (highway boards, transportation safety boards, municipal and regional codes) than you would think, and all like to regulate slightly different issues, and aren't very accessible to the average layperson.

The other thing I'd caution you about when trying to monetize this is that the local bus companies will almost certainly come after you, and will have legal teams who are used to fighting the minutae of transport law - so don't be surprised if you find yourself having to lawyer up with some very specialized (and hence, expensive) counsel.

As an example of both, here's ([1]) a story of a Canadian startup that was declared illegal by the Ontario Highway Transportation Board (a tribunal no Ontarian outside of the transportation sector has ever heard of) after the bus companies when after them. Seeing as it's in Canada that case shouldn't serve as a precedent, but does (as does the UberCab story) serve as an example about the challenges that come up when you try and disrupt something as established as the transpiration sector.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2008/11/12/ill-never-let-canada-live-t...

aidenn0
It may or may not be illegal, but inasmuch as ride-sharing is actively encouraged by state and local governments, it is unlikely that anybody has ever been prosecuted for this.

The taxi regulations only apply to taxis that can spontaneously pick you up on the street, not cars arranged for in advance. The gray area e.g. Uber is whether or not hitting a button 5 on your iPhone 5 minutes ahead of time counts as being "arranged in advance"