law - Carpooling possible banned in big cities

Elsewhere in the world governments have been trying to force car drivers to share their vehicles with strangers, called car pooling. In China, local governments try to ban carpooling. Why? Because the car drivers do not have a business license, writes Knight Ridder from Beijing.
It is funny and sad at the same time, the governmental banning business. A Shanghai website boasts already 20,000 clients, a quarter of whom are happy car poolers, a habit most Europeans and Americans despites since it intrudes the privacy of their cars. Most would rather share their bed before they would share their car. Not in China's big cities.

"It is an illegal business operation without a proper license. Those who conduct it could be punished," a Transportation Management Bureau official told the Jilin Daily newspaper. In Shenzhen, one transportation official, Sun Pulin, told a regional newspaper that anyone who offered carpooling services for payment could face impoundment of the car.

So funny.