INDUSTRY IN REVIEW

By Don McCurdy

And we’re how stupid?

Near and dear to the heart, and wallet, of every taxicab driver is the price of gasoline. Cities around the country, at least the ones that regulate fares, are constantly fumbling about for a reasonable method of keeping the drivers from going broke when gas prices go into orbit. The sad part of the story is that we have more than we need right here in the U.S. if the idiots, alleging to “lead” us, would simply get out of the way.

Economics is a difficult subject, but it’s not impossible. There are some very simple laws that govern economics. Yes, there are deep theories about government spending and recovery from recessions and all that, but I’m not talking about theories, I’m talking about the sun comes up in the east kind of stuff.

The most basic law of economics is supply and demand. If supply goes up, prices go down. If demand goes up, prices go up. Pretty simple stuff, right? There are other factors involved, don’t get me wrong, but these laws don’t change simply because politicians choose to lie about them.

It will be a wonderful world when we can all drive our cars with the solar panel on top powering it, but that day isn’t here yet. Claiming to be on the side of “the little guy” doesn’t carry much weight for taxicab
drivers who are paying an extra $30 to $40 a day for gas. If genius Energy Secretary Steven Chu thinks $8 a gallon gas is a laudable goal then it’s time to start hoping for some change.

Where’d they get this clown? Was Bozo on assignment? The price of everything revolves around the price of oil. If we don’t drill for it here we have to buy it from somewhere else. Since the world is coming to understand the full scope of the “climate change” con, you would think that some of our own intellectual pygmies in Washington would stop pretending that nobody knows. Hey, Al, the emperor has no clothes!

Uh oh, somebody found out.

Somebody must have filled in Jeff Jacoby on the status of Boston taxicab drivers. He’s the second one I’ve heard use the term “share cropper” when discussing the state of affairs in most medallion cities. What Jacoby missed is the fact that riders must pay more to cover the costs of these medallions and the interest charged on loans to buy them.

Now, close your eyes and imagine what the price would be to Boston taxicab riders if the driver didn’t have to pay upwards of $100 a day to rent the medallion? If the price was lower, see the above supply and demand comments, how many more people would be able to afford to ride in taxicabs? If that many more people rode in taxicabs how many more people would be needed to provide service to that increased ridership? So you see, the fundamental construct of the industry actually reduces the demand for the service.

If I were a medallion owner I’d be ever vigilant that guys like Jacoby don’t embarrass the city into trying to wean the city off medallions. It’s bad enough when politicians keep going to the well and reducing the value of medallions by issuing more. As I’ve stated numerous times, the cash that cities get for their medallions is nothing more than tax that the riders are required to pay in perpetuity.

One can only hope that Jacoby doesn’t figure out that the good citizens have to pay forever for the one time bite of the apple the medallion sale represents. Amazingly, politicians see it as money for nothing. Next they’ll want chicks for free.

That didn’t take long.

After only two decades someone had finally figured out that you can bust your face on a taxicab partition if you don’t wear your seatbelt. Who’d a thought? Well, Steve Crowell has been pointing that out for at least the last decade and touting a design that is a little more face friendly.

The situation has gotten bad enough that the Bloomberg administration is asking their taxi of tomorrow to be designed with a new partition, perhaps, one a bit more “nose”worthy. Maybe it could come with some of that embedded powder that helps blood clot. Now, that would be face friendly!

According to an unnamed taxi official, the taxicab partitions currently in use would fail if they were subjected to federal safety guidelines. Gee, let me see, cars have been getting safer and safer for the last twenty years except for New York taxicabs. Well, any taxicab with partitions.

TLC Commissioner David Yassky said the new partitions would undergo federal crash testing for the first time. The first time? You mean the government is going to start obeying its own laws? Wow, this could start a trend! Maybe somebody will realize that about 80% of what the federal government does is beyond its constitutional mandate. Nah, no chance of that happening. We’ve been operating outside the scope of the Constitution for so long that judges now believe it’s okay for the government to function beyond its Constitutional mandate and “Constitutional scholars” routinely disobey the tenants of the Constitution without so much as a lawsuit.

Meanwhile, you’d better buckle up while riding in a partitioned taxicab or you may have to face the
consequences. Ouch.

Do they ever get it right?

If you’ve ever read an article in the newspaper or watched it on the evening news about a subject you had some experience with you have to marvel at how wrong a story can be reported.

Recently, here in Houston, a driver was reported to have “followed his gut by turning on his camera and recorded a robbery in his taxicab.” Well, not so fast there sparky, the camera runs all the time. The camera keys on various inputs, meter on, meter off, door openings and a driver pressing the emergency button. The driver cannot turn the camera off, so therefore he cannot turn it on.

The article then continues to commit the cardinal sin of taxicab robbery stories. The writer mentions that the driver was robbed of $250. Now it’s not very bright to be carrying $250, in my opinion, while driving a taxicab at night, but some people do it.

Where do they find these people?

Reading the news reports from Denver you have to wonder where Yellow Cab recruits their managers, Klan rallies? According to the news reports the string of abuses attributed to Denver Yellow Cab management should not only get them fired, but should get them blackballed. Is that racist? Blackballed? But I digress. It’s hard enough to limit your company’s potential legal exposure in our lawsuit happy world without creating lawsuit opportunities.

While it is hard for a large corporation to know what’s going on at every branch it seems to me that the cat is out of the bag now. Now that the case is settled there is no longer a reason for the Veolia corporate empire to keep these folks on. Perhaps, they would be a little more sensitive to their driver’s plight if they actually drove a cab for a few years. If it was me I’d have them drive for Union or Metro, though.


If you have any comments regarding this or any of my articles please feel free to contact me at dmc@mcacres.com. —dmc