Richmond Coun. Carol Day is suggesting passengers who use illegal ride-hailing in Richmond should be fined – not just drivers.
Currently, drivers are fined if they are caught, but there have been no consequences for passengers, or for the ride-hailing app developers.
In her motion, Day refers to a recent Richmond News story about how two reporters were able to easily get rides using illegal ride-hailing apps Raccoon Go and UDI-X.
Day’s motion to ask the province to look at allowing fines for passengers using these illegal services is on next week’s community safety committee meeting agenda.
“Fines for passengers would force people to insure the companies they hire are in fact licenced,” Day explained in her rationale for the motion.
Richmond RCMP have included ride-hailing infractions in its latest report to the community safety committee. This is the first time they've reported these numbers in the committee meeting.
The report showed the City of Richmond handed out $2,250 in fines and the Passenger Transportation Branch (PTB) handed out $ 9,829 in fines in the first quarter of 2022. The city handed out five tickets and the PTB handed out 16.
This was the result of two sting operations.
Since the end of December, at least $18,000 in fines have been handed out to illegal ride-hailing drivers.
