PEDICAB SANTA MONICA!
Regulation vs. Innovation | NO FREE RIDES! Regulations Cripple "Pedicabs" | Take Survey
A San Diego Thrill

The Two articles below are excerpts from ABC News John Stossel's webpage. There used to be Pedicabs in Santa Monica. Should we have Pedicabs in Santa Monica? ( Take Survey! ) John Stossel's has an active discussion forum on this subject with many interesting ideas on how to address the situation. Take a look at his forum.
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Regulation vs. Innovation
(Reference: ABCNews )( JOIN the John Stossel Forum )

In Santa Barbara, Calif., rides from bicycle rickshaws known as "pedicabs" are popular with tourists and locals alike.
     Yet the city council just passed a law requiring pedicabbers to get a criminal background check, plus a driver's license, a business license, and proof of insurance.
    The pedicabbers say the new regulation will drive them out of business. But Santa Barbara's mayor says it's a safety issue.
     To that, John Stossel says, Give Me a Break. "I think she and the city council are a bunch control freaks who want to run other people's lives," he says. "Regulation kills innovation."
    What do you think? Can too many rules kill a good thing?
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No Free Rides!
Regulations Cripple 'Pedicabs'
Commentary by John Stossel and Kristina Kendal
(Reference:  ABC News )

• say life is better because of pedicabs. Pedicabs are bicycle rickshaws that young men peddle around, some carrying up to six people in the back. One woman said, "They'll take you anywhere you want to go." Another said, "It saves our feet cause our feet hurt from dancing, so every time we go boogying we take a cab."
• Young men peddle the cabs around, often giving tourists rides. Sometimes they take kids home from the movies, or at night, outside bars, they give rides to people who are too drunk to drive.
• "We're taking people all over the place. We're getting them off the street safely," said Seth Tuton, who pedals one of Santa Barbara's pedicabs. They're not exactly a business. The pedicabbers don't keep a regular schedule and they don't charge a fare for the rides. Passengers are often surprised when they learn that the rides are free.
  However, Tuton and his friends do make some money, because many people give them tips. They can make anywhere from $5 to $100 a night.
• Everyone we talked to seems to love the pedicabs. And Santa Barbara's mayor, Marty Blum, says the pedicabs are great "We really love our pedicabs. They're part of our ambience here; they're part of the transportation system and they do a really good thing," Blum said.
• It's a nice way to travel, but the pedicabs may not last long in this town. They may not last because that same mayor and the city council just passed a law requiring pedicabbers to get a criminal background check, plus a driver's license, a business license, and proof of insurance.
• Why?
•  Blum said, "There were complaints."
• But the pedicabs haven't been reckless and running people down, Blum acknowledged.
  "Sometimes they run into the side of a car; we've had that happen; even the side of a police car," Blum said.
• Once a pedicabber bumped into something, and his passengers, who were pregnant, went to the hospital to be checked out … but it turned out they were fine.
• It seems to me that the mayor and city council are just a bunch of busybodies who want to run other people's lives. Blum said, "That's not really why I ran for office. … We just want to make sure everything's safe for people."
• Now who knows, maybe more rules would make pedicab riding even safer, but does it ever occur to the politicians that too many rules can kill a good thing? Most of these men now say the regulation will end the pedicabbing.
• "If it isn't broke, why fix it?" said pedicabber Chris Asher.
• I brought up the mayor's concerns about safety with the pedicabbers.
• Asher said, "We are safe. I mean, tell us how we're not safe."
• I asked the pedicabbers, what's the big deal about getting a license?
• "It's not just a license, though. They want license, they want insurance, they want background checks," said Timothy Tharp, another pedicabber.
• It all costs money — the pedicabbers would have to pay for their own background checks and insurance can cost more than $1,000.
• "I wouldn't even make enough to pay for the license and insurance that we would have to get," said pedicabber Michael O'Shea. "I can't do it because I don't make any money doing this. I just like to do it."
• I told the mayor the pedicabbers are afraid that the cost of all of these regulations will keep them off the streets. Blum scoffed at their concerns, saying it "doesn't cost a lot of money, though, for us to have safety for our public."
• Politicians always talk about safety, but the government busybodies can give us so much protection that we won't be able to do good things, like take a happy, free ride down the beach.
• Give me a break

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