South Park Highlights Ride-Share Debate with ‘Handicar’

Comedy Central’s South Park took a look at ride-sharing
this week with Timmy’s Handicar
service, which includes a child’s wagon carrying a table and
chairs attached to Timmy’s wheelchair. Timmy’s business ends up
threatening taxicab services in the Colorado town and sparks a
Wacky Races type race between competing
transportation choices.

“Nobody takes jobs away from us,” says one cab driver in the
show. “We need to speak to Mayor and tell him to shut down this
illegitimate business.”

Although South Park is a cartoon, some of the
issues brought up in the episode are not that far off from issues
ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft have to deal with every
day. Reason TV spoke with Lyft co-founder and president John Zimmer
at the 2014 Atlantic City Lab conference in Los Angeles
about a few of these issues earlier this month.

Originally published October 7, 2014, and text is
below: 

“The dangerous thing is to have a patchwork set of regulations,”
says John Zimmer, co-founder and president of the ridesharing
app Lyft.  “It can
make it really difficult for a company to operate.”

After starting the popular peer-to-peer transportation company
in 2012, Lyft is now valued at $700
million dollars and present in over 60 cities across the
U.S. Zimmer states that having services like Lyft is essential to
city growth as it provides residents with affordable transportation
and jobs. 

Lyft’s popularity and success has made it a target for state
regulators who are struggling to deal with the new sharing economy.
Right after launch, the California Public Utilities
Commission served Lyft—along
with Uber and Sidecar—cease and desist letters and fined the
company $20,000 over safety concerns. Though the company worked an
agreement out with the state, it still faces similar opposition in
others cities where they are disrupting entrenched businesses like
taxi companies. 

“What we’ve realized is that there are many agencies at a state
and local level and there are many interests and existing
industries,” says Zimmer, who sat down with Reason TV at
the Atlantic CityLab conference
in Los Angeles.  “So often when we work really hard to solve a
problem with the state agency, then the legislature comes out with
something that’s being supported by trial lawyers or insurance
companies or city attorneys have separate issues that they’re
concerned about. It’s really challenging.”

Though Zimmer states that the overlap of government agencies is
a major problem in navigating regulatory hurdles, his solution is
to create another agency that will encompass innovation and
streamline the process similar to the Office of Civic
Innovation established by San Francisco mayor Edwin Lee in
2012. 

But Zimmer adds: “I haven’t seen yet a model within that
innovation group where they start looking at regulations and they
think forward five years, 10 years to think through ‘how can we
maintain the things that are important to us, but still allow for
this type of innovation?'”

Produced by Alexis Garcia. Shot by Paul Detrick. Music
by Podington Bear.

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