On a recent Monday, David Crawford says he gave a ride in his Edisto Island Shuttle van to three young women who informed him that they initially had requested an Uber to take them off the island, but that the driver canceled two minutes before their scheduled pickup.
“They came down for a break,” Crawford, who has owned the local transportation company for more than 10 years, said when contacted by The Nerve. “That’s done routinely, just a fun little family trip.”
As Crawford first told The Nerve for a story last July, he believes there is a lack of private transportation companies in rural areas statewide. The Nerve in September revealed, based on a review of state records, that if you want a ride from a “transportation network company,” such as Uber or Lyft, it likely will be hard to do so in at least 100 small towns or cities, as well as in three rural counties, in South Carolina.
In a companion story that month, The Nerve revealed that in South Carolina in 2021, at least 10% of rural households in nine counties had no vehicles, and 27 of the state’s 46 counties were above the national average in that category, based on available federal data.
Crawford, who has several drivers whom he said are “basically brokered out for the rides I can’t take,” supports a state House bill reintroduced last year, which he believes can give his business and other rural transportation companies statewide regulatory relief.
“I’m glad this bill passed (the House) again,” he said in his interview this month.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Leon Stavrinakis, D-Charleston, unanimously passed the House earlier this month by a 110-0 bipartisan vote. Since 2020, Stavrinakis has introduced the legislation at least four times; in 2021 and 2024, the bill unanimously passed the House each time with strong bipartisan support but died in the Senate Judiciary and Transportation committees, respectively, records show.
The bill currently is in the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Horry. Rankin didn’t reply to a recent written message from The Nerve seeking comment.
Sen. Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, who is a committee member and the Senate majority leader, told The Nerve in a recent written response that he didn’t “know anything about the bill.”
“It looks like the House passed it a couple weeks ago, so I don’t know what Senate Judiciary is planning with it,” Massey said. “We’ve had no conversation about it.”
Paula Benson, the committee’s assistant research director and senior staff attorney, told The Nerve last Thursday in a written response that the bill has “not been assigned to a subcommittee yet,” adding, “No meetings about the bill have taken place in Senate Judiciary so far.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Ed Sutton, D-Charleston, last month introduced a companion bill in the Senate, which was referred to the Senate Transportation Committee, chaired by Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley.
TNCs versus Class Cs
Both the Senate and House bills would allow Crawford’s company and similar businesses to be classified as a “transportation network company” (TNC).
State law defines a TNC as a “person, corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or other entity” that uses a “digital network, platform, or Internet-enabled application to connect a passenger to a transportation network driver for the purpose of providing transportation for compensation using a vehicle.”
Under Stavrinakis’ and Sutton’s bills, a “personal” vehicle covered by the TNC law could be – though not required to be – registered or licensed as a charter limousine by the S.C. Public Service Commission (PSC), or as a limousine or other “for-hire” vehicle by the governing body of a county or incorporated municipality.
Crawford has said he would classify his van as a type of limousine within a TNC.
TNCs are regulated primarily through the state Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS); contested cases can be appealed to the PSC. ORS and the PSC jointly handle the regulation of Class C carriers, such as taxis and charter limousines.
A charter limousine with a Class C certificate can carry up to 15 passengers but in contrast to taxis, “accepts passengers exclusively on a pre-arranged basis where pricing is determined on an hourly basis,” according to the ORS website.
A Class C taxi is defined on the site as “any motor vehicle carrier equipped to carry up to 15 passengers and operates on call or demand/response service where pricing is determined on a per trip basis.”
As of March 27, at least 172 businesses with a total of 574 limousines and 99 businesses with a collective 297 taxis were operating in South Carolina with Class C certificates, ORS records show.
A total of six TNC companies, including Lyft Inc. and Uber subsidiary Rasier LLC, were “active” in the state as of March 4, according to ORS records, which didn’t include the number of those vehicles. State law protects the secrecy of those operations, though The Nerve revealed last year that the state’s larger cities, towns and counties received most of the nearly total $5.6 million in assessment fees paid by TNC companies during a 2.5-year period.
Crawford last year said he didn’t believe his business is a taxi service because his rides are scheduled in advance – not hailed as with a taxi – through a digital platform, such as a website.
Crawford said then he voluntarily relinquished his state charter certificate for his business in 2024, mainly because he couldn’t afford the nearly $700 monthly insurance premiums for the minimum required level of coverage for his van. He also said that at the time, he found only one insurance company in the state that offered the line of insurance coverage under his certificate.
In addition to insurance cost savings, Crawford said that being regulated as a TNC as opposed to a Class C service likely would bring less red tape.
To operate in South Carolina, TNCs must submit an application to ORS, which will issue a TNC permit if the application is approved, according to the ORS website. In comparison, Class C taxi and charter limousine businesses have to submit an application to the PSC; if the application is approved, the companies then must obtain a “Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity” from ORS, according to the site.
The TNC application is shorter compared to a PSC application for a taxi company, The Nerve’s earlier review found. And taxis must be inspected by ORS before a certificate can be issued, according to the PSC website.
In his most recent interview, Crawford said he believes that making it easier for private transportation companies to start up and operate in rural areas statewide not only will help fill ongoing transportation gaps but also will contribute to South Carolina’s economy.
“It’s money back in the economy,” he said.
Brundrett is the news editor of The Nerve (www.thenerve.org). Contact him at 803-394-8273 or
