New York State Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin M. Lawsky and Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced on Friday that they had filed for a temporary restraining order against the scheduled New York City launch of car-sharing service Lyft.
The car sharing service, known for its pink mustache decorations, has been operating since April in Buffalo and Rochester and had announced it would begin operations in Brooklyn and Queens, without getting a green light from the state.
“After Lyft rejected a reasonable request by the state to delay its launch, we filed a motion for a temporary restraining order in State Supreme Court this morning,” Lawsky said in a statement. “As a result of that action, the court has granted the state a temporary restraining order preventing Lyft from launching this evening in New York City. We will return to court on Monday, to address issues pertaining to Buffalo and Rochester in addition to New York City.”
Lawsky continued that the action was pursued “only after repeatedly offering to work with Lyft in order to ensure that its business practices complied with the law. Instead of collaborating with the state to help square innovation with statute and protect the public, as other technology companies have done as recently as this week, Lyft decided to move ahead and simply ignore state and local laws.”
He said the company’s arguments are a “disingenuous attempt to disguise old-fashioned law-breaking that jeopardizes public safety.”
Lyft is a car-sharing service that allows a car’s owner to turn an auto into a personal Zipcar and rent it by the hour or the day. The owner sets a price, and an intermediary service lists the car online, connects the owner with people who want to it and takes a portion of the fee.
At issue is insurance for car share vehicles. While car-sharing has been sanctioned in California, Oregon and Washington, some insurers are cautioning against it. In the states that have passed laws, legislation prevents insurers from canceling the policy of an owner who rents a vehicle.
Car-share programs are also required to provide liability insurance approved by the state.
The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) recently pointed out that the rise of formal car-sharing programs throughout the United States has uncovered numerous insurance-related challenges, especially over the role of the car owner’s personal insurer and what exposure it may have.
John Murphy, NAMIC’s state affairs director for the Northeast said, “With a car-sharing program, an insurer lacks important information for gauging the risk.
Car sharing is essentially a commercial enterprise, and the personal auto carrier should not be required to cover a risk that it never intended to cover.”