DC has had a carpooling system since 1975 (it is called slugging, drivers pick up "slugs" ;-) so they can drive on I-66 during rush hour).

And guess what, nobody checks drivers' backgrounds.

Granted state of Virginia already has vehicle inspections (mandatory every year) so maybe the answer is to just have those in each state.

But yeah the system works fine. An acquintance working for the DHS hasn't driven herself to work in 15 years because she has been slugging.

Sluggers also don't exchange any money.

http://slug-lines.com/Slugging/Etiquette.asp

Sounds a little stupid to me: "No money, gifts, or tokens of appreciation are ever offered or requested. A driver doesn’t expect the riders to help out with gas money. The relationship between the driver and rider is mutually supporting. The driver needs the slugs just as much as the slugs need the driver. If a driver wants help with the gas, he should organize his own car pool. He shouldn’t ask a slug to pitch in for helping him access the HOV!"

Car costs money, gasoline costs money. How do the drivers need the riders? Sounds like just plain stupid to me. Money is a good invention and tool, why not to use it.

Edit: realized that this allows the drivers to use express lanes, which are common in US. (Don't have those in my country).

Instead of just calling the system stupid you could have spent 30 seconds searching for it and seeing how it works. It is right there in the first paragraph on the wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slugging

---

[...] frustration over failures of public-transport systems and high fuel prices, led to the creation in the 1970s of "slugging", a form of hitchhiking between strangers that is beneficial to both parties, as drivers and passengers are able to use the HOV lane for a quicker trip. While passengers are able to travel for free, or cheaper than via other modes of travel, and HOV drivers sometimes pay no tolls, "slugs are, above all, motivated by time saved, not money pocketed".

---

It would have taken you less time to read that than to write your comment.

Most people are more concerned about getting somewhere than reading contracts, seeing proof of insurance, etc. -- this based on seeing how commuter sharing systems work in the wild. If you're super concerned, next time you flag down a taxi make sure you make sure they're not a "rogue" cabbie; them being uninsured is the the least of your concerns.

> Most people are more concerned about getting somewhere than reading contracts

Indeed. I'd also add "Getting somewhere cheap..." as a primary incentive for these rides.

I've used Craigslist "ride shares" between Montreal<>Toronto ($30) on a number of occasions. I fully understood the risks I was taking compared to paying 3x as much for a safer train ride ($100).

The vehicle is advertised as being a Mercedes mini-bus [1] with seating for ~8 people but usually only has 6 passengers and plenty of extra space. The driver was usually an immigrant from China who drove the route everyday, so they know the route well and are always very efficient and reliable. Their lack of english-speaking skills was somewhat of a concern but never caused any issues in practice.

I was more concerned about how they managed to survive on what was basically a minimum-wage payout for a full-day of driving. But there is clearly a supply of workers. Plus they made extra money doing deliveries of newspapers between cities.

Paying for an over-packed Megabus for a comparable $30 price was out of the question because it's always full, always noisy, full of extra stops in between, smells halfway through if you're near the back, etc, etc.

Consumers are capable of making economic cost comparisons. You go on Craigslist searching for bottom-of-the-market rides to save money, there's always a certain expectation of added risk. Same goes with Megabus, almost all of the worst bus drivers I've seen are employed by them, but being outside of the 'sharing' economy seems to protect them from similar scrutiny.

[1] http://www.carsberry.com/photogallery/zxn3vt402kfz.jpg

My brother does regulation of motor carriers for a living. The answer to "how do they do it" is -- the companies are run by organized crime, use illegal immigrant labor, and do zero maintenance.

When I say "no maintenance", I don't mean ripped carpets and dirty windows. We're talking no functioning brakes.

When there's an accident, the bus driver just runs off.

Just like for drugs, we should probably legalize this form of transport.

Right, if people could "magically" be anywhere they wanted instantly, safely, free, etc. - who would go somewhere any other way unless it was for the experience of doing so. Most people don't even realize how dangerous driving is currently relative to other risks to health and life; sorry, but I'd take zero risk over being insured for it any day.

Montreal<>Toronto is around $45 on VIA, no? Or are you talking about a round trip?

I presume the < > means to and from. In my specs shorthand that usually implies bidirectional communication.

> make sure they're not a "rogue" cabbie; them being uninsured is the the least of your concerns.

Could you elaborate?

Guessing they mean the fairly common (around me) practice of a cab driver loaning their car to a friend or relative who may not have the correct licenses or carry the correct insurance.

Right, but why would this be the least of my concerns? What's the greater concern here?

Getting robbed, kidnapped, raped, killed, etc. - I personally had a "ghost" cabbie try to swipe my credit card data using a card swipper, demand to take me to an ATM, etc. - lucky, nothing "bad" happened; after the fact, called in his ID number and it wasn't real. This is a bigger issues in some areas, Uber first introduced a panic button in countries were cabbie attacks were a larger issue, but believe they're even adding it to some cities in the US now.

Depends what you mean by "greater concern." Obviously getting robbed, kidnapped, raped, or killed are among the worst possible outcomes of any scenario, but when I think of "greater concern" I tend to consider the likelihood of each outcome and not just the desirability.

That is why I always call taxi on address. And when I can't I usually use cars of big reputable companies.

What makes this even more concerning is that the driver's insurance company may decide he is carrying passengers for hire and, therefore, that the regular car insurance offers limited or no coverage.

My policy says it does not apply:

"To any vehicle used to carry persons or property for compensation or a fee, including but not limited to delivery of food or any other products...However, a vehicle used in an ordinary carpool on a ride sharing or cost sharing basis is covered."

The question would be whether this is an "ordinary carpool on a cost sharing basis." Lawyers are paid to argue about these things.

> The question would be whether this is an "ordinary carpool on a cost sharing basis." Lawyers are paid to argue about these things.

I imagine the intent of this is to cover 'informal' car sharing - e.g. you have a roadtrip with a friend and both pay for petrol, or you drive to work with your neighbour and share costs.

Not sure how it would apply to Lyft Carpool - I think initially your insurance company would push back on it.

A serious question to everyone complaining about uninsured drivers: do you ask your friends for proof of insurance before getting in their cars as passengers?

Do any insurance companies sell passenger insurance to cover accidents when you're the passenger in a car with an underinsured driver?

1. No, but I have a pretty good understanding of the economic situation of my friends and would be very surprised if they are not in compliance with insurance requirements. Some guy who just drives up to my house, not so much.

2. There is something called "uninsured motorist insurance" which covers a variety of situations caused by drivers without insurance. You'd have to check the details of a given policy as to this situation. Even without that, your health, disability, and life insurance should apply.

I have health insurance, so treatment for my bodily injuries is covered. Someone else is driving, so if his negligence results in a wreck I generally won't be liable to the other driver. I won't be responsible for fixing his vehicle.

That covers most garden-variety car wrecks, so there is little need to be concerned about my friend's insurance. I suppose if I were really on top of things, I would ask my friends for proof of insurance anyway, because maybe I would want to sue him for pain and suffering, which his insurance might pay for (my health insurance would not pay for that, or for lost wages.)

Never seen "riding around in someone else's underinsured car" insurance. Typical umbrella policy wouldn't cover that unless I'm negligent. I suppose I could get disability coverage which might help protect against the lost wages from getting injured in someone else's car.

> I have health insurance, so treatment for my bodily injuries is covered

No, that's not how it typically works. If the injury was caused by car accident, your insurer will likely deny the claim. This happened to me when someone rear-ended me and I went to the ER to get checked out; I didn't want to file a claim with the other party's auto insurance but had to for payment of the ER visit.

Sorry your insurance is crummy. Mine explicitly says it will pay for my care and that my insurance company can seek damages from those who may be liable and their insurers.

In California, health insurance is not required to and can ask for it back.

From the insurance dept website http://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/105-type/95-guides/... :

"If I am injured in an accident, does my health insurance pay anything?

Usually, your health insurance pays for your immediate medical care. Then your health insurance company will typically try to get back money from your auto insurance or the other person's auto insurance. When one insurance company tries to get money back from another insurance company, it is called subrogation."

That situation only exists because the other party had auto insurance. If they didn't have auto insurance and you didn't have auto insurance that covered it, your health insurance policy would have covered it.

Depends on your location more than anything else. Health insurance coverage varies wildly from one country to another.

Your injuries could potentially be more than what your insurance would pay, thus your driving friend would be liable for the injuries.

Actually your insurer would likely go after his, assuming he had it, to get their costs mitigated.

> Your injuries could potentially be more than what your insurance would pay, thus your driving friend would be liable for the injuries.

I suppose that could happen to some, but my insurance pays for all care after I satisfy the flat out-of-pocket requirement.

I suppose my friend would be liable for the out-of-pocket cost, but that would typically be only several hundred dollars--a fair amount of money, but not much relatively speaking if this is a wreck that caused injuries.

Worse-- the insurer will deny the claim and make the patient go after the other person's insurance

Insurance companies tend to cover passengers, unless those passengers are there because you're doing weird things.

Car-pooling is sufficiently weird for insurers to require you to let them know you're doing it, and they may adjust the premiums.

As for whether I ask: yes, I do. Most of the people I get lifts from are insured as part of their job and a bunch of other people have checked for me; or it's public transport and again other people have checked for me.

1) I don't, but I don't have any friends who would be so stupid as to not have insurance. If I do, that means my choices in friends are poor, but I hope not. On the other hand, when I'm getting into a car with a stranger I would really like to know if they have insurance. Just like I don't check the food my friends are serving me to make sure it's fresh,but when I go to a restaurant I expect relevant agencies to make sure that people employed there know how to cook and the place fulfils certain hygiene requirements.

2) I guess if that happened my home insurance would cover it. I'm honestly not sure what would be there to cover if I was a passenger though, even if I had to be hospitalized it wouldn't cost a penny(national health care).

> I don't have any friends who would be so stupid as to not have insurance

You might be surprised.

Probably less surprising is that they might be insured, but have taken out the minimum required for passengers.

> I'm honestly not sure what would be there to cover if I was a passenger though, even if I had to be hospitalized it wouldn't cost a penny

Pain and suffering, lost wages, cosmetic surgery.

>>Probably less surprising is that they might be insured, but have taken out the minimum required for passengers.

In EU any car insurance, no matter the premium, has to cover minimum 5 million euro for bodily harm and 1 million euro in property damage, so this is not an issue. But lyft does not operate here so it does not matter.

>>Pain and suffering, lost wages, cosmetic surgery. Yeah, I can agree with those.

Yes. Your auto liability insurance covers you in any personal vehicle.

afaik liability insurance only covers passengers when you are the driver (hence, "liable") and either typically, or always, not at all if you're a passenger - according to my sister, who works in the insurance industry - and, additionally, all of this varies greatly from state to state in the US.

Do background checks and extra insurance exist in any carpool systems?

AFAIK Scoop does with checkr.io

Yup, we use Checkr for our motor vehicle history checks

No insurance is a huge red flag to me

Insurance and regulation arbitrage is basically the name of the game for Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb as far as I can tell.

To me, the game of the "sharing economy" is to use the vastly lowered transaction and communication costs of the internet to make better use of unused capital. Cars and housing in those cases.

That regulation is a decade or two behind the technology is unfortunate, but merely a side story.

I spend two nights with Airbnb hosts. Both had a spare room, one was home writing her thesis the other a single mother. Both could use the additional money more than the few minutes of bathroom/kitchen time that I used.

I also spend a couple nights with family - they don't have any special insurance or taxes for me either. I don't really see any difference, I didn't annoy the neighbours in any case.

That sounds clever and informed but is mostly obnoxious.

What? It's well known that both Uber and AirBnB long relied on their users to operate unlicensed jitneys and unlicensed, uninspected, uninsured lodging houses.

Uber originally was exclusively licensed town cars. Vacation rentals have been around for centuries.

And both are primarily successful because they have executed at a very high level on a consistent basis.

I didn't mean to offend, but I apparently have. I truly believe what I said, so I would like to know how would you suggest I improve the comment?

You could improve your comment by acknowledging that most businesses cajole, skirt, finagle or ignore regulations when it suits their purpose and they think they can get away with it. Uber and AirBnB did not invent this game.

> Uber and AirBnB did not invent this game.

True, but most businesses (outside finance) have other ways to make money besides cajoling, skirting, finagling or ignoring laws (or the latinate "regulations," as you prefer).

> or the latinate "regulations," as you prefer

"Regulation" (at least in the US) is a broader category, covering both "laws" passed by elected lawmakers and "rules" made by unelected public servants.

For starters, suggesting that the primary cause of their success is anything other than consistently executing at a high level is insulting.

Secondly, Uber got big using exclusively licensed town cars. And vacation rentals have been around for centuries.

Are you describing your own comment?

That's very meta!

Existing, old school carpool programs don't check to see if drivers have insurance, so how is this anything new?

Existing, old school carpool programs aren't paying their drivers, either. Which means it isn't commercial use. Which means your regular auto insurance covers it. Unlike this.

They get around this by limiting the amount of payment to the drivers' costs (i.e. the IRS standard mileage rate of $0.54/mile.)

From the TOS:

"...we may charge you to reimburse the Carpool Driver for the costs associated with a Carpool Ride provided to you. [...] Reimbursements may include per mile charges at up to the prevailing IRS standard mileage rate, and other expenses like tolls and parking fees." (Emphasis mine)

That's an interesting legal theory, but I wouldn't want to be the test case.

If they wanted/needed to pay a higher amount, could Lyft get around this by paying the driver two fees - a first constrained one to skirt the insurance rules and then a "separate" fee for another component such as advertising or data provision or something else plausible but arbitrary?

A 1992 email from Richard Stallman about libreadline's license is, oddly enough, relevant here:

"The issue first arose when NeXT proposed to distribute a modified GCC in two parts and let the user link them. Jobs asked me whether this was lawful. It seemed to me at the time that it was, following reasoning like what you are using; but since the result was very undesirable for free software, I said I would have to ask the lawyer.

"What the lawyer said surprised me; he said that judges would consider such schemes to be 'subterfuges' and would be very harsh toward them. He said a judge would ask whether it is 'really' one program, rather than how it is labeled.

"So I went back to Jobs and said we believed his plan was not allowed by the GPL."

Judges are not computers, and are generally capable of seeing through your clever plans.

If it walks like a duck, smells like a duck, and quacks like a duck, a court is very likely to call it a duck.

I think it's debatable, legally, whether or not this constitutes commercial use. It's designed only for picking people up along a route you already drive regularly, and the monthly cap of $400 means no one could conceivably make a living off of it, even if they gamed it somehow and had multiple accounts.

The amounts seem purposely low so as to appear like non-commercial activity.

Pretty sure normal insurance covers giving rides so long as you don't profit -- that is, as long as your compensation is no more than the cost of giving the ride, at which point it would become commercial activity, with a different risk profile.

People shouldn't just worry about "no insurance" but also underinsurance. Minimal insurance in many areas is ridiculously too low. If you're signing up to do this as a driver you better #1 Tell your auto insurance company and #2 Up your insurance levels to the max (something you should probably do anyways if you can afford it).

If you're signing up to do this as a rider, well I don't think you should given the insurance problems and you not having any guarantee that someone will be held liable if they cause an accident.

Getting into a bad accident with an underinsured driver at fault is a life changing event.

Or make sure you have health insurance.

Your own health insurance is one thing - compared to it, your liability in the event of an accident is essentially unbounded.

How? I am not driving the car.

Yeah. Perhaps my comment was not clear. They made it sound like you were in grave danger if you merely rode in the car of someone with insufficient automotive insurance, to which my answer is "make sure you have health insurance." Actually, that's my answer to many things.

I suppose they can't offer insurance because the insurance company didn't know how to compute the price. In other words, because Lyft is doing something very different than what has happened for the previous 6 or so years, the insurance industry doesn't know how to react.

Sounds like an opportunity to me.

Oh, you could find an underwriter for everything if you look enough. It's just that the premium might be very high.

Background checks? I had 2 UberX/Grab (the Singaporean Lyft) drivers who openly admitted to being ex-cons - and that in Singapore too. One even laughed that British prisons were like a 5* hotel compared to Asian ones.

If these companies perform background checks, what are they checking for?

Being an ex-con should not disqualify you from driving a cab. Especially in a country like the US that has obscene incarceration rates, and where who ends up in prison is a factor of race and wealth more than the seriousness of the crime.

An ex-con has paid his or her "debt to society" by being in prison. If we don't let them get a job and earn a living, how will they get rehabilitated in society?

Edit: typo/car/cab.

Oh, I don't mind, personally, and I agree with you. I also think security on these apps is done by the dissuasive power of knowing that you are live-tracked and almost certain to be caught, rather than any pre filtering (which is the taxi industry's MO); this is a feature.

This is what Uber checks for in California: https://newsroom.uber.com/details-on-safety/

Basically any lifetime sex offense, or terrorist register; and anything violent, or DUIs in the last 7 years.

Both of my drivers would not have passed the last 7 years bit (from what I deduced from our conversation) so the standards are clearly different abroad.

I agree if they fiddle with some numbers on a spreadsheet and payed less in taxes or smuggled drugs or something. If they beat somebody up or raped somebody I don't ever want to be near them, much less trust my life to them. I don't give a hoot if they can't get a job or be integrated in society. As far as I am concerned they are permanently broken people - probably like their victims.

Excellent find. This is concerning.

I'm not concerned. I also walk around my neighborhood at night, even though some folks have told me that's not safe.

Maybe I am overthinking it. Would love to see Carpooling succeed. Makes commutes easier and environment friendly. Lets hope for the best. Lyft itself is a great service. Never used Line before so cannot speak for that. Even having location tracking for your ride is a notch up.

Lyft Line and Uber Pool have significantly improved my standard of living. For me, it's cheaper and more convenient than owning a car.

But you have a good health and home insurance plan, right?

Home insurance? No. I live in a large apartment building so I'm not nervous about home invasion.

Health insurance? I've been punched by strangers (road rage, sigh) and haven't needed to go to the hospital. The kind of incident my mother imagines for me walking at night isn't the kind of incident where health insurance matters. Life insurance, though. I should probably get that.

That is how carpooling works.

For non-commercial purposes, sure.

I doubt lyft is making much if anything on this. It's likely just a way to get users to start using the app. If they use it daily it's more likely they'll use the standard lyft service too

I have a theory that this service is to allure drivers more than consumers. Given that consumers had an option of using Lyft Line or Uber Pool for their daily commute anyways, Lyft Carpool don't add that much value other than perhaps cheaper fare. On the other hand, for the single drivers, this sounds like a good opportunity to make a side income without a huge impact on their lifestyle. Probably another 10 minutes of their lives picking up and dropping off a passenger, and they get paid a few hundred extra bucks a month.

I have never thought about being a Lyft/Uber driver, but I am seriously considering registering for Lyft Carpool, and who knows? If I like it, I might become a Lyft driver as a side gig.

I wonder if it will recommend a regular Lyft driver if there are no carpool matches.

Why don't we just skip these platform tie-ins and make an auction network for rides and deliveries?

That way you can see options like dollar & time estimations across multiple available services whenever you need to go somewhere.

Haha I said exactly this in my private slack to my ops network:

Overlay "uber" app where people can submit a bid for flat-fee plus tip % from point A to point B - the idea is that uber drivers could also login to a system to select A-B trips which are bid on

Driver says gimme a bid from a radius of me at point a to a radius of point b - when there is a march they connect

I said that on Feb/26

Yep. You could classify trip requests for delivering people, goods, alcohol, medical, or perishable goods. A multitude of apps for people with cars could push or pull from the network, so at any time a driver (with a compatible app) could see nearby deliveries and their bids. Business services and apps users could post bids for delivery real time.

I mean, drivers already run Lyft and Uber simultaneously, and are now used to the idea of ridesharing.

The radius idea was based on "give me a rider who wants to go from where I am now to near where I already need to go"

Eh, I see where you are coming from, but I wouldn't use it myself. The constant bidding and sequential worrying of whether I paid the "right" amount for the service would be too much stress for me. I would rather pay an extra couple of more bucks instead of stressing over the bidding itself.

So... create another new platform?

A network, not a platform. Being platform agnostic makes a difference.

Think of it as building an ad auction network for multiple websites and advertisers, rather than just trying to build an ad network for just your own website.

Wouldn't that require active participation of existing platforms? Seems like it'd be a tough sell.

Not really, considering the service base that makes up those platforms is trying to fragment off. They would be an easy first customer.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3057014/fed-up-with-uber-and-lyft...

I believe that would be the expectation, but your clarification is good.