# Terms of Use (v2, effective 2026-11-09) What changed in version 2 (a summary; the numbered paragraphs control): the Service is now an iPhone app with no chat in the app, and after a request is confirmed the two sides see each other's WeChat ID and continue on WeChat (0.1, 7); an English version, which controls (0.4); new sections on companions, messages, safety, and counts and restrictions; a clearer cost-share cap (3.2); a release for disputes between users (12.5); and a rewritten dispute-resolution section (13): arbitration is now administered by the American Arbitration Association, and you may opt out within 30 days after accepting this version (13.10). ## 0. Preamble 0.1 These Terms of Use (the "Terms") are the agreement between you and LUQ Labs LLC, a California limited liability company (the "Platform", "we" or "us"), about your use of Shunlu (顺路), a trip-information tool for Southern California offered as an iPhone app in the United States, together with its web pages at https://shunlu.app (together, the "Service"). 0.2 This is version 2 of the Terms and it takes effect on 2026-11-09. The version number and the effective date are shown in the title of this document and on the terms page in the app. 0.3 By ticking the consent box when you first sign in, you accept these Terms and the Privacy Policy. After the Terms are updated you will be asked to tick the box again before you can continue posting, requesting to join or confirming requests; see Section 14. 0.4 These Terms are written in English and translated into Chinese. Both versions are available in the app and on the website, and their section and paragraph numbers correspond. If the two versions differ, the English version controls. 0.5 In these Terms: - "trip post" (or "trip information") means a post a user publishes on the Platform describing a trip. There are two kinds: a Driver post (车主帖), where the author drives their own car and offers seats; and a Rider post (求同行帖), where the author is riding, is looking for others going the same way, and states a preference: no preference (都可以), prefer a driver (偏好车主) or prefer Uber (偏好 Uber). - A Rider post goes ahead in one of two ways, decided by the first request the author confirms: one Verified driver takes the author's party in the driver's own car; or other riders join the author to share one Uber ride (an "Uber group", at most 4 people including the author's party). A Rider post that prefers Uber does not take requests from drivers. - "request to join" means a user's application to join another user's trip post; "confirm" means the post author's acceptance of that request. - "companion" means a person who travels with another user on a trip found through the Platform and is not its driver: a user whose request to join is confirmed; the author of a Rider post, and the people traveling with them, when a driver's request to join that post is confirmed; and every member of an Uber group. - "per-person cost-share cap" means the most a companion may be asked to share on a Driver post (Section 3). - For a trip that starts at an airport, the time on the post is the landing time, and in these Terms the departure time includes that landing time. ## 1. What the Platform is and is not 1.1 The Platform is a tool for publishing and finding trip information in Southern California. Users publish their own trip posts and contact each other directly. 1.2 The Platform is not a transportation network company (TNC), is not a charter-party carrier or any other kind of carrier, and is not a transportation broker. It does not provide transportation services, operate vehicles, or employ or engage drivers. It does not decide who travels with whom, does not assign or dispatch drivers or companions, and does not schedule trips: users find, contact and choose each other. It does not set, charge, collect or hold any price or payment. The only amount the Platform calculates is the maximum cost share (Section 3), which exists to keep trips non-commercial; it is not a price, and a driver may ask for any lower amount or for nothing. 1.3 The Platform does not provide or arrange any insurance and does not check any user's insurance. Whether a trip is covered depends on the insurance each driver and companion has; drivers must meet paragraph 4.3. 1.4 The Platform currently charges no fees to any user. 1.5 The Platform is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the University of California, any of its campuses, or any student organization. School names on the Platform are used only to identify the school of a verified email address and the places of trips. ## 2. Eligibility and accounts 2.1 You must be at least 18 years old. By accepting these Terms you confirm that you are. If the Platform learns that an account belongs to someone under 18, it will close the account. 2.2 You must use a real phone number and register only one account, for yourself. Only United States (+1) mobile numbers are accepted. The WeChat ID you enter in your profile must be your own; another user sees it only after a request between the two of you is confirmed (Section 7). 2.3 You sign in with your phone number and a one-time verification code sent to it by text message. The app keeps you signed in on that phone until you sign out ("Me" (我) → "Sign out" (退出登录)), delete your account, or do not open the app for 30 days. You are responsible for keeping your phone and your WeChat account secure. ## 3. Cost sharing 3.1 Drivers, companions, and the members of an Uber group are members of a cost-sharing arrangement among themselves. The Platform is not a party to that arrangement. 3.2 Each Driver post shows a per-person cost-share cap that the Platform calculates from the driver's trip cost (the driving distance of the trip, as the Platform estimates it when the post is published, multiplied by the IRS standard mileage rate for the current period), so that the total all companions share for one trip does not exceed that trip cost. The cap is set so that the driver also bears at least an equal share of the trip cost. The cap is a maximum, not a price. Whatever the driver and companions agree privately, no one may ask for, accept, pay or promise more than the cap for a trip, under any name; doing so violates these Terms and may lead to restriction or termination of the account (Section 9). 3.3 In the app, the per-person cost-share cap of paragraph 3.2 appears as a sentence stating that the total shared by all companions does not exceed the driver's trip cost calculated at the IRS standard mileage rate for the current year, followed by the per-person maximum; the amount is shown as "$Y/person" ($Y/人). A driver may only lower the amount below the cap. Only a Driver post carries an amount. A Rider post has no amount field, although its note may mention a budget; when a driver requests to join it, the app shows the cap for that trip (paragraph 4.8). An Uber group has no amount field (paragraph 3.6). 3.4 On a Driver post, companions pay their share to the driver directly, offline, in a way they agree; for an Uber group, see paragraph 3.6. The Platform does not collect, hold, transfer, refund or guarantee any money, does not provide or recommend any way to pay, and does not decide how much anyone actually pays; the only amount it calculates is the cap of paragraph 3.2. 3.5 The Platform does not pay or give drivers any money, subsidy, reward or other benefit for posting trips or for having companions, or in any way that depends on the number of trips, seats or companions. 3.6 In an Uber group, one of the members (usually the person who posted) books the ride with Uber, a third-party ride service that is not affiliated with the Platform, and the members share its cost among themselves as they agree; the Platform does not take part in, calculate, or guarantee the fees. A rough Uber price range that the app may show for some trips is for reference only; it is not a quote, and the actual cost is whatever Uber charges. ## 4. Driver Rules 4.1 Every trip you post is a trip you were going to make anyway, whether or not anyone joins; companions share only your trip cost, and you do not profit from it. A Driver post must have a departure time or time window that you set for your own reasons; a trip you would cancel if no one joins is not a trip you were going to make anyway and may not be posted. "Profit" means receiving, in money or in kind, more in total for a trip than the cap of paragraph 3.2 allows. 4.2 The per-person cost-share cap of paragraphs 3.2 and 3.3 applies to every trip you post. 4.3 For every trip you post, your vehicle must be covered by auto liability insurance that meets California's legal requirements, and your driver's license and vehicle registration must be valid. You confirm that you have confirmed with (or understand from) your insurer that an 'expense-sharing ride arrangement' (what policies call a 'share-the-expense car pool') is covered. You understand that your insurer may deny a claim if companions pay more than what it considers your actual expenses for the trip (which may be less than the cap of paragraph 3.2), or if the driver app of a ride service such as Uber or Lyft is switched on during the trip. The cap is not a statement that your insurer will cover the trip, and the Platform does not check your insurance (paragraph 6.1). 4.4 You are not an employee, agent, or contractor of the Platform; you are a member of a cost-sharing arrangement and are responsible for your own driving. 4.5 The Platform limits the number of trips you may post per day and per week and the number of seats one post may offer. The limits in force are those in the Platform's current settings and are applied when you post. For these limits, your trips on a day are your Driver posts for that day that are not cancelled plus each of your requests as a driver on a Rider post that is confirmed for that day; the "day" is the calendar day, in Los Angeles time, of the departure time (for a post with a time window and no fixed time, the start of the window); the "week" is the Monday to Sunday that contains that day. 4.6 To keep the Platform for non-commercial cost sharing, a driver who publishes three or more Driver posts on the same airport route (the same airport, and roughly the same area at the other end) within seven days, or publishes Driver posts on five or more days within seven days, is placed under manual review. While under review you cannot publish Driver posts or request to join Rider posts as a driver; your existing posts are not affected; the Platform may lift the review after checking the account. A person or business that carries people for compensation may not post trips; such a business may appear on the Platform only as a sponsor under Section 11, and only if it holds the permits the law requires. 4.7 No-shows, counts and restrictions are set out in Section 9 and apply to every trip you post. 4.8 When you, as a Verified driver, request to join a Rider post, this Section applies in the same way: the trip must be one you were going to make anyway; the total that the people on that post share with you may not exceed your trip cost calculated as in paragraph 3.2, under any name; the trip counts toward the limits of paragraph 4.5; and the Platform may take it into account in the review of paragraph 4.6. You may request to join a Rider post as its driver only where the app shows the cap for that trip. 4.9 On every trip you post, you must obey traffic and vehicle laws, including never driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and never carrying more people than your vehicle has seat belts for. ## 5. Companion Rules 5.1 Share the amount shown on the post, offline, in the way you and the driver agree. Do not pay or promise the driver more than the per-person cost-share cap, under any name (including a "tip" or "for the trouble"). 5.2 To request to join a post you must have a verified phone number, have accepted the current Terms, have a WeChat ID in your profile, not be blocked by or have blocked the author, and meet any school requirement the author set. To request to join a Rider post as its driver you must be a Verified driver (Section 6); any user may request to join a Rider post as a member of its Uber group until a driver has been confirmed. The number of requests you may have pending at the same time is limited by the Platform's current settings. 5.3 Be on time. If you cannot make a trip, cancel in the app as early as possible. Cancelling a confirmed trip less than 24 hours before departure is recorded as a "late cancellation" and shown on your profile (paragraph 9.2). 5.4 The members of an Uber group are subject to paragraph 3.6. ## 6. Verification and badges 6.1 'Verified driver' only means that, at the time of review, the Platform manually checked that the name on a driver's license issued by a U.S. state matches the account and that the license had not expired, and checked the vehicle photo against the last digits of the license plate. It does not include driving records, criminal or other background checks, insurance verification, confirming the license with the DMV, or confirming that the person using the account is the person on the license, and the Platform does not monitor any of these after the review. 6.2 "School verified" only means that you were able to receive a verification code at an email address of that school (.edu). The badge shows UCI, UCSD, UCR or "other school". The Platform does not verify enrollment. 6.3 Driver verification is submitted in the app: you take or choose a photo of the front of your driver's license and a photo of your vehicle, and enter the last 4 characters of the license plate and the vehicle's make or model and color; the app re-saves each photo on your phone before uploading it. The form asks you to confirm two statements (shown word for word on the form), and the time of each confirmation is recorded. Review is manual; if your submission is not approved, the reason is shown and you may correct and resubmit. After approval your vehicle details cannot be changed in the app; to change them, contact us, and a change means a new review. How the photos are handled is described in the Privacy Policy. ## 7. Messages and contact details 7.1 There is no chat in the app. Apart from what a post itself shows, the only text one user sends another through the Platform is the message attached to a request to join (100 characters or fewer, seen only by the post author) and the reason and note an author may give when declining a request (seen only by that applicant). There is no general inbox and no friend list. 7.2 Until the author confirms a request, the Platform uses automated filters to block phone numbers, WeChat IDs and other contact details in post notes, place names, request messages, decline notes and display names; the filters may not catch everything. After the author confirms a request, the author and that applicant can see each other's WeChat ID, and the author can copy the WeChat IDs of everyone confirmed on the trip, for example to start a WeChat group. 7.3 Your nickname, post notes, place names, request messages, decline notes and vehicle description are checked against a list of words that are not allowed. Text that does not pass is not published. 7.4 After a request is confirmed, the two sides may continue on WeChat. WeChat is a separate service under its own terms and is not part of the Service; the Platform does not see or keep what is said there, and you can still report a user under Section 8. ## 8. Safety 8.1 An author who has disclosed a gender may mark a post as preferring companions of the same gender (the app labels this "优先同性别同行"). On the author's request list, the Platform shows whether each applicant is of the same gender as the author, without showing the applicant's gender itself. Whether to accept a request is the author's own decision; the Platform does not block any request or post on the basis of gender. This option exists for personal safety: some users, especially women traveling with people they do not know, feel safer with someone of the same gender. An author of any gender may use it for their own post; it does not limit anyone's access to the Service. 8.2 The Platform is not an emergency service. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. 8.3 You can report a user from a trip's detail page or a user's profile page, choosing one of the listed reasons. A report for harassment, violence or sexual misconduct, driving under the influence, dangerous driving, or a minor using the Service restricts the reported account for 72 hours while the Platform checks; the reported user is told in the app. The Platform reviews reports manually, checks and handles each one as soon as it can, and records its decision in writing. 8.4 An account is permanently banned after a verified report of violence or sexual misconduct. This decision is made by the Platform's staff, not automatically. 8.5 False or malicious reports violate these Terms. When one account files several safety reports within 24 hours, its further reports are reviewed manually and no longer restrict the reported user automatically. 8.6 If you block a user, or a user blocks you, neither of you can see the other's posts or profile. ## 9. Outcomes, counts, restrictions and bans 9.1 After a trip, each party may mark 'completed', 'the other party cancelled early' or 'the other party did not show up'. If the marks disagree, the Platform decides and records its reasons. Marks can only be made after the departure time. If a trip stays unmarked for a long time, the outcome is settled by the Platform's rules. 9.2 Your profile shows how many trips you completed, how many you cancelled late, and how many times the other party marked you as a no-show (a count of the other party's marks, labelled as such). A count of zero is not shown. If you disagree with a count, use the report function on that trip. 9.3 If, within 90 days, you are settled as a no-show as many times as the threshold in the Platform's current settings, your account will be restricted for 30 days. While restricted you cannot publish, request to join, or confirm requests; you are told the reason and the end time in the app; the Platform may lift the restriction early. A late cancellation is shown on your profile but does not restrict your account. 9.4 The Platform may restrict, suspend, or terminate an account for violations of these Terms, verified reports, or safety incidents. 9.5 Bans and restrictions follow your phone number. If you delete your account and register again with the same phone number, the new account carries the ban or restriction of the old one. For this purpose the Platform keeps a salted hash of your phone number after deletion (Privacy Policy, Section 6). ## 10. Your content 10.1 You are responsible for what you publish. Do not publish harassing, discriminatory, false or unlawful content. Do not exchange contact details before the author confirms a request; the Platform blocks them (paragraph 7.2). 10.2 You may not use the Platform for commercial transportation purposes. 10.3 You may not: publish a trip that does not exist; ask for, pay or promise more than the per-person cost-share cap; use more than one account to get around a limit or restriction; impersonate another person; advertise in posts or request messages; scrape or collect other users' information in bulk; or circumvent the content checks or the blocking of contact details. 10.4 You grant the Platform a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to display the content you publish to other users for the purpose of operating the Service. Content that remains after you delete your account (Privacy Policy, Section 6) is shown under the name "Deleted user" (已注销用户). 10.5 The Platform may remove or hide content that violates these Terms, the law or the rules of the App Store. The Platform has no obligation to monitor users or content, and removing or not removing any content does not make the Platform responsible for it. ## 11. Sponsored content 11.1 Sponsors are independent businesses that pay the Platform to show sponsored content; they are not otherwise affiliated with the Platform. The Platform does not endorse, recommend or guarantee any sponsor or its services, including whether it holds any license the law requires, and receives no commission or other payment based on anything you arrange with a sponsor. 11.2 The Platform currently shows no sponsored content. Any sponsored content is labelled "Ad" (广告); the Platform gives sponsors no personal information about any user; and anything you arrange with a sponsor is between you and the sponsor. ## 12. Risk, disclaimers and liability 12.1 Traveling with people you do not know carries inherent risks, including traffic accidents, another user's unsafe driving or conduct, no-shows, late arrivals, missed flights or connections, and loss of or damage to belongings. You decide for yourself whether to travel with any user, and you voluntarily assume those risks. 12.2 The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". To the extent permitted by law, the Platform makes no warranty of any kind, express or implied, including about the accuracy of any trip post, the identity, driving or conduct of any user, or that the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free. 12.3 To the extent permitted by law, the Platform and its members, managers and agents are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data or the cost of substitute transportation, and their total liability to you for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of US$100 and the amount you paid the Platform in the 12 months before the claim arose. Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability for the Platform's own fraud, willful injury, gross negligence or violation of law, or any other liability that the law does not allow to be limited. 12.4 You are responsible for your own driving and conduct. You will indemnify and hold harmless the Platform and its members, managers and agents from claims brought by third parties (including other users), and the resulting losses and reasonable legal costs, to the extent they arise from (a) your driving or other conduct during a trip, (b) the content you publish, or (c) your breach of these Terms or violation of law. This paragraph does not apply to the extent a claim is caused by the Platform's own negligence or willful misconduct, and it does not apply to disputes between you and the Platform, which are governed by Section 13. 12.5 Disputes between users. The Platform is not a party to any arrangement between users. If you have a dispute with another user (for example about a trip, a cost share, a no-show, a delay or missed flight, damage to property, personal injury, or anyone's conduct), you will resolve it with that user. To the extent permitted by law, you release the Platform and its members, managers and agents from all claims, demands and damages of every kind, known and unknown, arising out of or relating to such a dispute or to another user's conduct, including claims that the Platform was negligent in providing the Service. You expressly waive the protection of any statute or rule under which a general release does not extend to claims that you do not know or suspect to exist in your favor at the time you agree to the release and that, if known by you, would have materially affected your decision to agree to it. This release does not cover the Platform's fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence or violation of law, and it does not affect your claims against the other user. ## 13. Dispute resolution 13.1 Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California and applicable federal law of the United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. The Federal Arbitration Act, including its procedural provisions, governs the interpretation and enforcement of the arbitration agreement in paragraphs 13.3 to 13.8 and 13.10. 13.2 Informal resolution first. Before starting an arbitration or a court case, the party with a claim will send the other a written notice describing the claim and the relief sought (to the Platform at markqiu@luqlabs.com; to you through the app or at the contact details on your account), and both parties will try in good faith to resolve it for 30 days. Any deadline for bringing the claim is paused during those 30 days. 13.3 Arbitration. Except as provided in paragraph 13.5, any dispute, claim or controversy between you and the Platform (including its members, managers and agents acting in that capacity) arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service, whether based on contract, tort, statute or any other legal theory, will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") under its Consumer Arbitration Rules in effect when the arbitration is filed (available at adr.org). The arbitrator may award any individual relief a court could award, including individual injunctive relief, but only in favor of the party seeking relief and only to the extent needed to resolve that party's individual claim. The arbitrator will issue a written decision stating the essential findings and conclusions. Any hearing will take place by video or in the county where you live, as you choose. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court with jurisdiction. 13.4 Fees. You will pay no more in arbitration fees than the filing fee that the AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules assign to a consumer; the Platform will pay all other AAA administrative fees and the arbitrator's compensation. Each party pays its own lawyers' fees unless the arbitrator awards fees under applicable law or the AAA rules (for example, for a frivolous claim). 13.5 Exceptions. The following do not have to be arbitrated: (a) an individual claim that either party brings in small claims court, if it qualifies there (and, before an arbitrator is appointed, either party may move a qualifying claim from arbitration to small claims court); (b) a dispute that the person alleging sexual assault or sexual harassment elects to bring in court under the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act; and (c) a request for public injunctive relief under California law, which will be decided by a court under paragraph 13.9 after the individual claims in the same case have been arbitrated, with the court case paused until then. 13.6 Individual claims only. You and the Platform may each bring claims against the other only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, consolidated or representative proceeding, whether in arbitration or in court. The arbitrator may not consolidate different people's claims or preside over any class or representative proceeding. If a court decides that this paragraph 13.6 cannot be enforced as to a particular claim or form of relief, then that claim or relief alone will be decided by a court under paragraph 13.9, and everything else will still be arbitrated individually, with the court case paused until the arbitration ends. This paragraph does not prevent either party from participating in a class settlement. 13.7 Many similar claims. If 25 or more similar demands for arbitration are filed against or by the Platform with the help of the same or coordinated counsel, the AAA's supplementary rules for mass or multiple case filings will apply. 13.8 Who decides; severability; changes. A court, not the arbitrator, decides any dispute about whether paragraphs 13.3 to 13.7 are valid or enforceable or apply to a dispute, including the effect of paragraph 13.6. If any part of paragraphs 13.2 to 13.7 other than paragraph 13.6 is found unenforceable, that part will be severed and the rest enforced. If the Platform changes this Section 13, the change will not apply to any dispute of which the Platform received written notice before the change took effect, and you may opt out of the new version under paragraph 13.10. 13.9 Courts and venue. Any dispute that is not arbitrated (including after you opt out) will be heard only in the state or federal courts located in Orange County, California, and you and the Platform consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts; a small claims case may also be brought in the small claims court for the county where you live. 13.10 30-day opt-out. You may opt out of paragraphs 13.3 to 13.8 (arbitration and the class-action waiver) by notifying the Platform within 30 days after you first accept a version of these Terms that contains them, or within 30 days after you accept a later version that changes them. Send the notice by email to markqiu@luqlabs.com, with the subject "Arbitration Opt-Out / 退出仲裁", within those 30 days. The notice must give your name and the phone number of your account and state that you opt out of arbitration. If you opt out, disputes between you and the Platform will be resolved by the courts described in paragraph 13.9. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms, and an opt-out you sent under an earlier version remains in effect. ## 14. Changes 14.1 The Platform may update these Terms; after an update you must tick the consent box again before you can continue posting, requesting to join or confirming requests. Each new version has a new version number and effective date and is announced in the app. Before you publish a post, request to join, or confirm a request, you will be asked to accept the new version; browsing, managing your existing trips and marking outcomes are not affected. When you sign in again you accept the version then in force. The Platform records the version you accepted and when. Until you accept a new version, the version you last accepted continues to apply between you and the Platform. ## 15. Termination and account deletion 15.1 You may delete your account at any time from the "Me" (我) tab ("Delete account" (注销账号)). Deletion takes effect at once: your posts that have not departed and your confirmed trips that have not departed are cancelled (the other party is notified) and your pending requests are withdrawn; trips that have already departed are still recorded with their outcomes. What is cleared and what is kept is set out in the Privacy Policy, Section 6. In other users' history you appear as "Deleted user" (已注销用户), except that notifications they received keep the display name you had when each was written. Deletion cannot be undone. 15.2 Termination by the Platform is covered by paragraph 9.4, and the carry-over of bans and restrictions by paragraph 9.5. 15.3 Sections 3, 12, 13 and 16, and any obligation that arose before termination or deletion, survive termination or deletion. ## 16. General 16.1 These Terms and the statements you confirm in the app (such as the driver confirmations described in paragraphs 4.1 and 6.3) are the entire agreement between you and the Platform about the Service. The Privacy Policy, which you also accept, describes how the Platform handles your information; it is not part of this agreement. 16.2 If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. The Platform's failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms; the Platform may transfer them together with its business. 16.3 The Platform notifies you through in-app notifications and, if you allow them on your phone, push notifications. It sends text messages only to deliver the verification codes you request, as described in the Privacy Policy; message and data rates may apply. You can contact the Platform at markqiu@luqlabs.com. You agree that these Terms, notices and other communications may be given to you electronically and that doing so satisfies any requirement that they be in writing. 16.4 Contact: LUQ Labs LLC · markqiu@luqlabs.com 16.5 The app is distributed through Apple's App Store. Apple is not a party to these Terms and is not responsible for the Service or its content. WeChat, which users may use to contact each other after a request is confirmed, is not part of the Service, and its operator is not a party to these Terms.