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Comment by pron | Hacker News Reader

> The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc.

It's not so simple. Normally people, at least in cities, rarely hitchhike or take up hitchhikers. The goal here is to make it acceptable, and naturally greatly increase the frequency this is happening. This can be reasonably taken as an endorsement by Google to the driver/passenger, because it is -- they want this to happen more often, and are essentially saying "it's OK to hitchhike through our app". This means that they can reasonably be seen as taking part in the entire transaction and assuming some portion of the liability.

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Read up on DC slug lines. We are talking 10,000's of people doing this daily with very minor government support for the last 15+ years. Mostly awareness and signage.

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

>In the San Francisco Bay Area, with the third-busiest rush hour,[3] casual carpooling occurs on Interstate 80 between the East Bay and San Francisco. As of 1998, 8,000 to 9,000 people slugged in San Francisco daily.[5] However, after bridge tolls were levied on carpool vehicles in 2010, casual carpooling saw a significant decline and etiquette became more uncertain

Woah boy I have racked up so many toll violations, I just assumed I didn't have to pay a toll for HOV. Wonder why they haven't mailed them through?

Smaller toll but still a toll. Do you not have a fastrak. I can't understand how anyone in the bay area who drives doesn't have a fastrak it saves so much time. You don't even need to keep it with you just register the license plate with the website.

I don't have a fastrak because I falsely assumed that HOV always has free tolls (except at the Bay Bridge), and I drive a motorcycle.

I was reading an article about 10 years ago about this ride-sharing in the DC metro area. We discussed how a smartphone app could make all this much easier and smoother. We didn't follow up on it back then...

It wasn't (and won't likely to be) the only big missed opportunity in my life.

Survivorship bias makes us forget about the other dozens of "taxi/carpooling apps" that did not succeed.

"The Upstarts" [0] talks about some of those.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Upstarts-Airbnb-Companies-Silicon-Cha...

To your benefit - it's not as easy as to take a few weekends and to code an ride-sharing app to app store.

Lots more business planning and resources are required to pull it off.

I have to think that putting it into an app is meant to encourage people who would otherwise never do this to do so -- the same way people happily use Uber who would never dream of using a gypsy cab under normal circumstances (and passengers then get upset/surprised/complain if Uber doesn't satisfy the expectations their implicit endorsement creates).

It's been happening in Houston for 15+ years, too. I suspect any city with decent HOV lanes and bad traffic has slug lines.

I think it's more like 40+ years, ever since the HOV lane went in.

"In practice, slugging involves the creation of free, unofficial ad hoc carpool networks"

Unofficial is the operative word here.

"Slugging"

What a charming name.

You are pushing the argument a bit by assuming that people will treat it as something different than hitchhiking simply because it's via an app and in-city. There is no reason to asume that - but I do agree that false advertising from Google and failure to properly inform the users of the risks could expose Google to such a liability. The answer is not to add customer support, but to be honest with the users regarding the risks- and make large commissions in the process.

I think that people will almost certainly treat it as something different than hitchhiking, and Google wants them to. In fact, the service depends on it, because if people treated it the same, it would happen at the same frequency as it happens today -- which is hardly at all -- and the service will fail.

I think you're overestimating how much people can and do rely on Uber support when something goes wrong in an UberPool.

And underestimate people's willingness assume all the risks with carpooling with a stranger. I see people lined up for a shared carpool to the DC suburbs every day.

I contact Lyft and Uber support multiple times a year for various reasons, and I barely even use Line/Pool.

Shit happens. If a company is acting as facilitator and money-handler, they are going to get a lot of customer queries, and they are going to alienate most of them if they aren't prepared for it.

Do they do something more than give you a full or partial refund after the fact? I think Google can handle that too.

> You are pushing the argument a bit by assuming that people will treat it as something different than hitchhiking simply because it's via an app and in-city.

Are you suggesting that Google will market this as "it's just like hitchhiking, and is no different, don't @ me"?

> There is no reason to asume that

Sure there is, the main one being a public reputation for your prospective hitchhiker that you can check before deciding to pick them up.

"Casual Carpooling" at least used to be popular - you can read about it here: http://sfcasualcarpool.com/

Originally, for the East Bay to San Francisco trips, cash would not exchange hands because the Bay Bridge toll was waived for carpools. Now that the carpool toll is $2.50, my understanding is that it's a little more awkward.

it's still very popular, with a suggested donation of $1 per passenger. not awkward at all (I take it almost every day)

You are assuming hitchhiking is unsafe. It may be less safe than other forms of transportation, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's especially unsafe. News outlets love stories about strangers abducting children because of how they draw eyeballs, but that happens to be extremely rare. But the anecdotal examples make you overestimate the risk of it.

And this is safer than hitch-hiking. The vast majority of people planning on assaulting strangers dont want to leave electronic trails so they can be easily found.

I somewhat recently learned about the propaganda from the FBI in the 60's and 70's to discourage hitchhiking. (possibly a covert assault on civil rights protesters hitching to rallies) It's easy to be scared of failure, suffering or what can go wrong... but not everyone is excited about what could go right.

Ultimately, I believe a big reason why hitchhiking is not very prevalent is that both the cost of air travel and vehicle ownership has gone down significantly over time. (adjusted for inflation)

> I somewhat recently learned about the propaganda from the FBI in the 60's and 70's to discourage hitchhiking.

Would love to read more about that... Got anything trustworthy?

I think the point is: As long as the person is with you, they share the fuel cost. You already decided to use a car, so you're driving, but the other person is now able to split the cost with you and hitch a ride.

Unfortunately the reality of the situation is: Even with Uber / Lyft there are instances of groping and rape. Once you are in someone's car they have power over you. They don't have to stop. They can threaten to crash the car, etc. And without any vetting this is a risky move.

This can absolutely not survive without some sort of support.

While others say "people already hitchhike" the truth is yes, and there's no liable company so people get paranoid and such. This app will enable a bigger scale which causes more issues.

> Normally people, at least in cities, rarely hitchhike or take up hitchhikers.

Hitchhiking is also illegal in most states.

Speaking as a former hitchhiker who used it to travel through 39 states, it's actually legal almost everywhere. What is illegal is to stand in the path of travel of a roadway, and in some locations standing on the shoulder is also illegal. But on a sidewalk, onramp, etc, as long as you're not physically in the road, it's almost always ok.

Some exceptions being Utah, Delaware, New Jersey, and maybe another, where you're specifically banned from soliciting rides using signage.

Sadly, the best resource for seeing what the laws are in each state was digihitch.com, which went down in 2014, I believe when the founder passed. Quite sad, they had pamphlets for every state with relevant laws written down -- it came in handy a few times when police stopped me. They were always respectful, but I did have to clarify the laws a few times, since it's clear if read, but not widely understood.

are you looking for this: https://web.archive.org/web/20140220034659/http://www.digihi...

No.

Hitchhiking is technically illegal in 4 states and rarely enforced even there.

http://hitchwiki.org/en/United_States_of_America#Police.2FLa...

I'd love to hear the justification for this.

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