Growing aches: ‘Bad apple’ car share members aren’t acting responsibly
Ross McLaughlin and Sandra Hermiston, CTV Vancouver
Published Tuesday, May 23, two thousand seventeen 6:00AM PDT
Last Updated Wednesday, May 24, two thousand seventeen Ten:30AM PDT
With insurance costs rising, parking hard to find and the high cost of possessing and maintaining a vehicle, car share makes a lot of sense. But as the services grow in popularity, the industry is also experiencing some growing anguishes.
Evo, Car2Go, Modo and Zipcar are among the companies battling to get a chunk of the car share pie.
“There’s been a large spike in request since we entered the market,” said Tai Silvey, director of Evo Car Share.
In less than two years, Evo has more than doubled its fleet but the expansion has come with some problems. Since it embarked, the company has dealt with about Ten,000 parking tickets, complaints about members ending their trips at parking meters and up to four complaints a week about members ending trips in private garages, making vehicles unavailable for others.
And some members don’t leave car share vehicles as clean as they should be.
“People leave their morning coffees. Like there’s a juice bottle in there right now,” said car share user Lara McRitchie as she pointed to an empty bottle in an Evo car.
Ross McLaughlin found vehicles with dirty seats, coffee sleeves, food wrappers and even an opened condom wrapper.
Another issue for car share members is trips that are ended while illegally parked. McLaughlin found one Evo car parked in front of a fire hydrant, another in a no parking zone and a Car2Go car parked illegally in an Evo spot. That means those cars can get ticketed or towed. On a Monday morning at the city impound lot we counted four Evos and seven Car2Gos.
CTV News reached out to all the car share companies about the issues and all say car share membership comes with responsibility.
Car2Go told CTV News in an email statement, “While illegal parking is a very petite percentage to the overall number of trips we see on a daily basis, when it does happen we educate members so they are clear on the rules. Car2Go covers our members parking, fuel, and maintenance, and we work to ensure that our members are aware of the responsibility to operate and park their rental within the City’s parking and driving rules.”
All tickets get charged back to the members and in some cases can come fastened with processing fees. Evo charges a $20 processing fee for a parking tickets and a $50 fee for towed vehicles, in addition to the towing charge.
Each car share company has a list of rules like no smoking in vehicles and ensuring all pets are inwards a carrying crate. And the rules are taken earnestly. Modo has no tolerance for smoking in vehicles and any member caught doing so will have their membership terminated.
Car share members are encouraged to hold each other accountable and to report problems.
“You know etiquette’s significant,” said Silvey. “We go after up with members to educate them on parking, cleaning etiquette and things like that. And of course if they proceed to manhandle we do have the capability to cancel their membership.”
But the companies tell us the number of problems compared to the number of trips being taken is not a yam-sized percentage. Still, it’s significant for members to be reminded to showcase respect and responsibility with the industry growing so quickly.