OHTB takes the side of the Bus Company
Well we got our ruling from the Ontario Highway Transportation Board (OHTB) and they say that it is illegal to Rideshare in Ontario, (here is the official decision [PDF 0.98 MB]).
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)
I know you are reading these restrictions and are saying to yourself that there is no way it can be this strict, but unfortunately it is. PickupPal was charged and fined for facilitating a ride from Toronto to Montreal for $60, the crime – our PickupPal member crossed municipal boundaries. How much did we make off of this ride - nothing 100% free as always - how much were we fined $11,336.07, (and that does not include our own legal fees to defend PickupPal in court).
Our issue all along has been with the Ontario Government and that the laws need to change. Ontario is the only jurisdiction in the 104 Countries that PickupPal has members in that has this type of antiquated laws about citizens traveling together on the books. Because of all of the attention that we have brought to this issue the Ontario Government has tabled an amendment to the definition of what constitutes a Pubic Vehicle. What they are in effect doing is bringing their transportation laws in line with the rest of the Provinces in Canada and jurisdictions around the world. We applaud the government for suggesting these changes however the legislation has not been amended yet and there is still a chance that it may get dropped.
We urge all PickupPal members and Ontario residents to voice their concerns with the Premier to ensure that the amendment passes. Tell Dalton McGuinty how you feel HERE and make sure the government does not go back on their word.
So the next question that must be asked is how does PickupPal plan on moving forward. First and foremost let us be clear, PickupPal operates around the world and we have no intention whatsoever to suspend our service to our thousands of members worldwide who rely on us daily. As it relates to traveling in Ontario we are sending out an e-mail notification to all of our members in Ontario informing them of the OHTB decision. We are also putting a notification on our website to everyone traveling in Ontario that they must abide by the current carpooling laws. We are looking into ways to determine which rides comply and which do not and will be implementing a system to inform those that they are in contravention of the law.
Having gone through this struggle to have the laws changed and to fight for the environment I am asked regularly if I thought it was worth the hassle - and my answer is a resounding YES! I am so proud of all the people who signed the petition, wrote articles, told their friends, sent us notes of encouragement and support giving us the courage to fight this fight. Because the bottom line is that if we want change we have to fight for it and if the government is not going to help then it is time that we stand up and fight for our right to try and find solutions to stop global warming and get people double up and cut down on CO2. We may have lost this specific battle but if the law gets changed then we have won the war and that is what counts at the end of the day!
Cheers - Eric
November 12th, 2008 at 10:16 am
[...] the court case was decided and PickupPal lost. They were fined CA$11,000 and forced to keep that despicable carpooling activity within the strict [...]
November 12th, 2008 at 11:31 am
[...] the court case was decided and PickupPal lost. They were fined CA$11,000 and forced to keep that despicable carpooling activity within the strict [...]
November 12th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
[...] 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 [...]
November 12th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
[...] They were fined $11,000 and now have to restrict their service inside of Ontario to almost nothing. [...]
November 12th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Carpooling Illegal in Ontario…
Give me a break. It appears now to be illegal to carpool in Ontario to school, to the hospital, to the airport, and probably to the vets, to the grocery store and to Tae Kwon Do classes. It is illegal to carpool across city limits. NAFTA’s cool, bu…
November 12th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
[...] バカげた事件のバカげたアップデートだ。8月に私はPickupPalというカープールを組織すサービスを提供するカナダのスタートアップを紹介した。このサイトで同じ通勤経路の仲間を探し、カープールすることでガソリンを節約しようというアイディアだ。なかなか良さそうな考えじゃないか？ それが違うのだ。PickupPalは怒ったバス会社に訴えられてしまった。オンタリオ州法によると、カープールには、家から勤務地まで毎日同じ運転者が運転し、運転者への支払いは週単位で行わなければならないなどの厳しい制限がある。カープール専用レーンを整備するのに「数十億ドルもかけた」末にこんな規制をしているのだから呆れる。とにかく決定が下され、PickupPalは違法とされた。CA$11,000（1万1000カナダ・ドル）の罰金の支払に加えて、問題の州法の規制に従うよう命じられた。オンタリオ州ハイウェイ交通委員会 （Ontario Highway Transportation Board = OHTB）により、われわれのカープール募集方式はオンタリオ州では違法だと裁定されました。（公式決定[PDF 0.98 MB]）カープールとして認められるには以下のようなまるで非現実的な条件を全て満たす必要があるというのです。* 経路は自宅から勤務先のみ – （自宅から学校、自宅から病院、空港など全てダメ）* 自治体の境界を越えてはならない – （市外から通勤している場合 – 隣人とカールすることはできません）* 毎日同じ人物が運転すること – （グループの中で交代で運転するのはダメ。いつも運転者は同じでなければなけない）* 運転者に対する支払いは週1度を超えてはならない。 – （隣人が会社に送ってくれても、すぐに支払ってはいけない。同じ週にもう1度運転してもらうと支払いができなくなる）CrunchBase InformationPickUpPalInformation provided by CrunchBase[原文へ]（翻訳：Namekawa, U） ShowListings(”arc3″); ShowListings(”arc2″); AddClipsUrl = ‘http://jp.techcrunch.com/archives/20081112ill-never-let-canada-live-this-down/’; AddClipsTitle = ‘カナダのバカな事件、続報―カープール・サービスが罰金を取られる’; AddClipsId = ‘2CBE02C952CFE’; AddClipsBcolor=’#78BE44′; AddClipsNcolor=’#D1E9C0′; AddClipsTcolor=’#666666′; AddClipsType=’1′; AddClipsVerticalAlign=’middle’; 前の投稿へ トラックバック [...]
November 13th, 2008 at 1:00 am
[...] model. The bus companies decided to go to the Ontario Highway Transit Board, which found PickupPal in violation of the Public Vehicles [...]
November 14th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
[...] through fuel. A win win strategy for b’oil and b’auto. Well, it’s happening again - this time though, further North. (Another [...]
November 15th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
[...] Read the entire article at Save PickupPal [...]
November 16th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
[...]Because of all of the attention that we have brought to this issue the Ontario Government has tabled an amendment to the definition of what constitutes a Pubic Vehicle. [...]
Could I suggest asking for a definition of what constitutes a Public Vehicle as well? I’m not sure that all your users would appreciate the use of Pubic Vehicles for carpooling…
November 16th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
[...] used PickupPal has been deemed to be operating illegally in the land of Queens Park. Congratulations Ontario on your new title as Canada’s antiquated law [...]
November 16th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
@ignusb A Public fechicle is defined as:
“public vehicle” means a motor vehicle operated on a highway by, for or on behalf of any person for the transportation for compensation of passengers, or passengers and express freight that might be carried in a passenger vehicle, but does not include the cars of electric or steam railways running only upon rails, taxicabs, car pool vehicles, nor motor vehicles operated solely within the limits of one local municipality; (”véhicule de transport en commun”)
Here is where the definition comes from: http://www.canlii.ca/on/laws/sta/p-54/20040802/whole.html
Cheers - Eric
November 18th, 2008 at 11:36 am
[...] OHTB takes the side of the Bus Company No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> [...]
November 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
[...] Ontario, stop picking on our pal, PickupPal. It’s about — sorry, aboot — time you recognize a Canuck’s right [...]
November 18th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
[...] http://save.pickuppal.com/2008/11/12/ohtb-takes-the-side-of-the-bus-company/ [...]