California poised to allow personal vehicle sharing services

[Liberal_in_LA]

California poised to allow personal vehicle sharing services
by Matthew Roth


Sierra Club/Flickr

Car sharing is a growth industry, as pioneer City CarShare would tell you, and it has beneficial environmental and economic impacts. Studies of car sharing services like Zipcar and City CarShare show that for every car that is shared, up to 15 private vehicles are taken off the road. Owning and operating a personal car is the second-highest family expense behind owning a house, and the highest expense for people who rent.

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City CarShare is trying to pioneer personal vehicle sharing, where car owners would make their vehicles available to a pre-screened pool of personal vehicle sharing participants during the periods of the day when their car is not in use, which for many vehicles is upwards of 90 percent of the time.

If you drove to work in San Francisco and left your car idle from 8 am to 6 pm, for instance, you could allow a pool of prospective vehicle share participants to use your car, for which you would make enough money to cover the cost of usage. If you consider the cost of owning and insuring your car to already be a sunken expense, this could be a way to "make" money for a commodity that is otherwise depreciating in value.


Of the many challenges to expanding car sharing to privately owned vehicles, the first obstacle is current insurance law. In most states, unless you are commercially licensed or you operate a livery service, receiving compensation from others for using your vehicle voids your personal car insurance coverage.


To this end, City CarShare has been working with California State Assemblymember Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) and Spride Share, a new company started by cleantech financier Sunil Paul of Spring Ventures, to draft Assembly Bill 1871, which would change insurance law to permit remuneration for personal vehicle sharing.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/transportation/detail?entry_id=62337&tsp=1#ixzz0mQNzutYE

[Hell Hath No Fury]

1. I used them for three years --

It was a really great deal -- perfect for City life when you just needed wheels to deal with some big shopping or going out of the immediate area for something like a doctor's appointment.

I think this is an intriguing idea.

[aikoaiko]

2. I'd be hard pressed to let me car be used this way knowing how people abuse rentals.

[gratuitous]

3. But you'd pre-screen the folks who would use your car

So you'd have some idea beforehand, who's driving your car, and what their attitude is toward using property that doesn't belong to them. I should also think that by using your car, someone would have a personal connection to you that they don't feel toward Hertz or Alamo, as well as an appreciation for the fact that your car is not part of some big fleet, but is indeed, your means of transportation, too.

[taterguy]

4. What a great idea, hope it spreads nationwide