Write a Contract

Ridesharing Legal & Regulatory Brief We would like to establish the rules and regulations to which people involved in ride sharing in the states of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, DC and Maryland (primarily) are subject to and the limitations that it could place on a ride sharing service. In particular, the issues of car insurance coverage (including civil liability) and right to be taking in passengers without permit, certification or other registration with authorities should be investigated. The type of ride-sharing considered is long distance and not for profit. People involved in this type of activity are people that want or need to travel between two places (generally more than 100 miles and less than 500 miles and often interstate) for personal reasons but that want to share the financial burden of doing so. Usually a driver would travel alone and bear the full cost of the trip (estimated at approximately 35-40 cents per mile for the owner of a compact car according to the AAA). The alternative would be to find willing passengers through an app that want to travel through approximately the same endpoints and at the approximately the same time than the driver (but without creating an opportunity for profit for the driver, just help him to cover up to 100% of his average cost). For instance, on a 200 miles journey, the driver could be precluded from obtaining from his passengers more than $76 (38 cents times 200 miles) to ensure it is a profitless activity. Such apps exist in Europe (under the name Bla Bla Car) and in Canada (under the name Kangaride). In a certain way, passengers are "paying hitchhikers". Apps like this are not well received by commercial operators that loose potential clients to theses sharing services: bus lines mainly and, to a lesser extent, train. They will often try to use existing laws and regulations to scare people off doing this type of sharing.  Another threat to this activity is the possibility for drivers of not being fully covered by their car insurance while doing so. We wish to establish how insurance laws, transportation laws and transportation regulations in the aforementioned states could preclude drivers (and to a lesser extent passengers) from taking on passengers in such a way. Participants in the service would primarily be residents of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore travelling to and from these big urban centres to regional centres (cities with between 20,000 and 500,000 inhabitants) located in the following states:   New York Vermont New Hampshire Maine Massachusetts Rhode Island Connecticut Pennsylvania New Jersey Maryland District of Columbia Delaware Virginia The result of your work would take the form of a legal brief.