Identification Of Traffic Accident Liability Of Online Car-hailing Platform Under Private Car Mode

In recent years,with the combined development of mobile Internet technology and offline traditional industries,online taxi booking has risen rapidly in China,even surpassing the trend of traditional cruise taxi service.It has become an important way for people to use online car-hailing apps to take a taxi.However,this way is also accompanied by difficulties in identifying responsibility for traffic accidents.Among the different operation modes of the platform,the most prominent contradiction and controversy is “private car franchise mode”.The most prominent problems are as follows: First,how do online car-hailing platforms position their legal status in the tort liability system? Different courts recognize the legal status of platforms as “network information providers” and “transport service carriers”.Second,how to identify the legal relationship between online car-hailing platforms and private car drivers? In terms of the legal relationship between the two,local courts hold different recognition degrees for different employment views such as “employment relationship”,“contract relationship”,“cooperative relationship” and “labor relationship”.Both of the above points show practical disputes.The Draft Civil Code(first draft)mentioned the infringement clauses of online car hailing,but deleted them one by one in the final draft.At present,only the “motor vehicle party” in Article 1,213 of the Civil Code fails to clearly identify the hidden subjects behind online car hailing.However,the current Interim Measures for the Administration of Online Car Hailing is not recognized by some courts at a low legal level.At the legislative level,there have been gaps or mistakes in some areas for a long time.At the theoretical level,various parties have different views and opinions on the identification of responsibility for traffic accidents of Internet hailing cars.The above theoretical disputes and legislation lag directly lead to all kinds of chaos in judicial practice,so as to produce different sentences in the same case or even different sentences in the same case.In the long run,relevant judgments lose judicial credibility and cause the intensification of social contradictions.This article aims to deeply discuss the legal status of online car-hailing platforms and clarify their rights and obligations with drivers.To solve the problem of what kind of civil liability online car-hailing platforms should bear under the private car franchise model which is controversial in traffic accidents.Based on the study of academic views and judicial cases,it is concluded that the legal status of online car-hailing platform should be identified as a “new carrier”,and the legal relationship between online car-hailing platform and private car drivers cannot be identified only.Private car drivers should be judged as full-time labor relationship or part-time cooperative relationship according to their working hours,frequency of receiving a single order,occupational uniqueness,income proportion and other characteristics.