INDUSTRY IN REVIEW

By Don McCurdy

I rest my case.

In what can only be described as definitive proof that politicians should not regulate industry, the Washington DC city council has surrendered and allowed Uber, the upscale car service, to operate in the city with “exempt” status as far as the DC taxi commission is concerned. The reported exemption has a few caveats, but by and large it all matches up with Uber’s business model.

The council was set to add an amendment to their taxi modernization bill that would have required Uber and/or Uber like services to have a minimum of five times the taxicab minimum fare. Well, apparently the Uberaholics went berserk with email, twitter and phone calls which caused the DC council members to wet their collective political pants and back off the amendment.

The unintended or intended consequence of the amendment would have meant that Uber would have had to raise its fare if the council raised the base rate of the taxicab meter. The council sort of saved face by adding in the requirements for Uber, but I have to wonder why the council didn’t apply the same level of brevity to the entire taxi modernization bill that it applied to the Uber subsection?

So, DC now has two tiers of taxicab service, the regulated version for the masses and the unregulated version for those who are willing to pay for something a little better. Let this be a lesson to regulators and politicians across the land: best not be jacking around with Uber.

This just in…

Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently came forth with a startling announcement, "it’s not always easy to spot a prostitute." Seeing as how this information is coming from a New York politician I can only imagine that there has been a study of some kind involved. Perhaps, a commission or some personal investigation, the article didn’t say exactly how the mayor came by this new information.

The subject came up as part of a discussion on a proposed antisex trafficking agenda item the city council was discussing. The bill would make it illegal for taxicab drivers to knowingly carry prostitutes and would require drivers to take a class on identifying prostitutes. Bloomberg said he didn’t know if was going to help or not but he did sign it into law. It may be grossly unenforceable but it makes great politics. Now at some point down the road he can claim his administration took action against sex trafficking. I know that feels good.

Not so easy in the Big Easy.

New Orleans decided to update their taxicab ordinance. Based on their requirements, I would have to guess that somebody went to New York for a visit because it sounded like a lot of the regulations came right out of the TLC’s library. The items at issue have been cussed and discussed in cities throughout the country with the possible exception of the disposition of the vehicle licenses or “permits.”

It is reported that the city has allowed transfer, sale and loans against these “permits” to become the norm and now they want to go back to the letter of the law as opposed to what the law has morphed into. That’s the trouble with not enforcing the law, it then becomes something other than what was intended by whatever legislative process created the law.

It has become somewhat in vogue to disregard the law as it is written and enforce what we think or wish the law to be, but this is one of the results of such folly. The problem is the law becomes subject to the whims of those entrusted to enforce it instead of what it was intended to be. Elect the right guy and the law can be whatever you want it to be. Well, at least whatever he wants it to be. Makes it kind of hard to know what to expect.

How civilized.

Recent reports out of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada are that the 25 year old who assaulted a taxicab driver with an iron rod will receive three years in prison. The driver was reported to be in a coma for five days and claims to still have problems. Now, I can’t say I know the particulars of the case or what the charges ended up being after plea bargaining and all but three years doesn’t seem like much for hitting someone on the head hard enough to put him in a coma. It seems to me that it could just have easily killed him. It’s good the honest citizens of Canada aren’t allowed to carry guns because if that’d have happened here in Texas the poor underprivileged assailant might not have ever seen 26, or even the inside of a courtroom.

We’ll just have to wait.

Reports are that Nashville’s Transportation and Licensing Commission, yet another TLC, had made an error and did not properly post a required public notice announcing taxi company permit applications. That means the world will have to wait to find out what the Nashville government’s picks for winners and losers will be. The error will send the TLC back to the drawing board now since there are two applicants. The decision was made last December and they have just gotten around to issuing the permits when they made the startling discovery that they hadn’t followed their own procedure.

It never ceases to amaze me how people think they can look to the government to solve a problem. In my little business we made a decision to hire a new employee. Three days later it was a done deal. Now, I understand the Nashville TLC’s decision was bigger, but it's been eight months and it’s still not done.

Save us!

Portland has a problem, too many taxicabs. Well, some people think that’s a problem. According to one company owner they’ve expanded and are “barely able to keep up with their business.” Of course, he claims to provide superior service. Perhaps, some of the companies that are claiming there are too many cabs would be willing to give up some of their cabs to bring that number down to where they think it should be.

Hey, wait a minute, there’s nothing in the ordinance that says they can’t take cabs off line so why don’t they? Well, you see, nobody is actually interested enough in reducing the number of cabs to give up any of their own. They just want to keep the next guy out. The guy who is expanding? Well, he thinks limiting the number of cabs would be counter productive. What it will actually do, me talking not him, is place an artificial value on the existing permits and protect inefficient companies. That’s what limiting competition does, it protects the inefficient.



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