Bruce Epperson is a lawyer and bicycle historian in Florida, USA. Bruce’s comment on a previous post drew my attention.
Several years back (2014 or 2015) I wrote a detailed analysis of the legal status of bike-share operations in Florida. It ran to about 30 pages. It covered everything from answering the question “what is the legal relation between a bikeshare operator and a government (depends on the form of the contract) to risk management, procurement, labor law and open records laws. I can send it if you want (it’s a public record). The very thought of giving permission to allow a firm to use the city’s public ways to rent scooter conveyances, but without a vendor contract, makes my lawyer’s hair stand on end.
I e-mailed Bruce and asked him whether I could post the analysis. He agreed and sent it to me, with the following warning:
Two cautions: 1) It’s breathtakingly boring; 2) It’s obsolete – no doubt, somewhere in there, the law has been supplanted or amended, so don’t rely on it unless you have me check out a particular point of law.
Bruce’s analysis also refers specifically to Florida laws. Laws differ outside the USA, but also among states in the USA. One of the genius aspects of the US federal system, and also a headache, is that some states may enact pioneering laws, successful or not, and the others get to observe the outcomes before they take action, or decline to.
In case you would like to read a breathtakingly boring — but perhaps highly significant — legal analysis, it is here:
Thank you for the share.
pdf link is set wrong, it only works if you copy the text directly into the browser address bar.
Little additional information to page 1, in Lyon, Paris and Vienna, JCD not only got the advertising space on bikes and kiosks but also exclusive advertising monopoly on city bill boards for the duration of the contract.
Thanks. I fixed the link.