Can someone enlighten me about the history of the taxi industry? I have a medical background and I know that HIPAA came to be because insurance companies were taking advantage of patients with known conditions. There were other reasons, of course, but horror stories of patient's protected health information being sold to the media and insurance companies prompted the legislation.
I have a hard time understanding how regulating personal transit is a governmental matter. A taxi driver may overcharge me a significant amount, and then there are instances of physical confrontation, but these are both rare and a risk that is inherent in accepting a ride with another person. It seems to me that the benefit to society (less pollution, traffic, easier commute, automotive scrap waste, etc) outweighs these risks.
Road management is a Government matter - specifically, managing congestion, where vehicles are allowed to stop and when, etc. Add on top of that the not-uncommon story in many countries of a taxi driver charging an extortionate fare without notice. Add on top of that ensuring that taxi drivers actually do their jobs and get people where they're going, rather than refusing to take people to locations within the city that are "too far away". Add on top of that regulating taxis so that people with disabilities can actually get out and about, seeing as public transport is dire in the US.
All of these things are things that people had huge problems with convincing taxi companies to actually solve - after all, it's more profitable not to - and eventually local Governments agreed that taxis are as important to a city's transport infrastructure as anything else and should be held to a certain standard. You can only realistically argue against that if you believe that everyone who was using taxis had an alternative, which isn't the case.
Uber solves many of these issues, I must admit - but what about five years down the line, once they have the near-monopoly they're seeking? Can we be absolutely certain it will continue to do what's best for the cities it services, even when it affects Uber's bottom line?
They will probably not get anywhere near a monopoly. Their businessmodel is flawed: anyone can start a similar service. In fact, many similar services already exist in Europe.
Anecdotally, none of my co-workers use Lyft in Seattle because "There's always an Uber 2 minutes away."
The network lock-in is quite real - if you can't get a critical mass of cars on the road, you can't get customers, and you can't get a critical mass of cars on the road without having customers paying fares.
What can really hurt Uber is unionization of their drivers - since nothing stops them from collectively switching to a competing service.
The lock in can be countered by the price actually. In the east and south bay you get better availability of drivers in lyft because it's about .40-.30/mile more expensive than uber. Lyft also has lyft line in parts of the east bay, increasing some demand there.
One could have said the same thing about Taxi Companies 10 years ago. They have all the drivers & yellow cars locked in! However Uber came in and disrupted. If things rot, disruption will follow. I hardly doubt we need to worry about Uber becoming an immovable monopoly.
Over charging is not rare. A busy cabbie doesn't dramatically over charge a few people. They'll overcharge everyone by a small amount.
Remember that one of the common user groups of taxis are "people who are drunk". These are vulnerable people who are less able to make sensible decisions, so the regulation needs to be a bit tighter.
That vulnerability means you don't want people with a history of sexual violence to be cab drivers.
There are other risks to passengers. You want to make sure all drivers have adequate insurance. We know that people are not capable of assessing that risk. You want to make sure that cabs are safe vehicles. For some cabs you want to make sure that they're capable of carrying disabled passengers (eg, people with guide dogs, or people with wheelchairs) so you specify that bigger companies include adapted cars.
The regulation exists for the same reason the HIPAA regulation exists: because there used to be so much abuse in cab companies.
Whether the current regulation makes much sense is another question - I don't think you'd end up with the current US style regulation if you tried to design a system from scratch.
All car owners have to deal with insurance, in case they get into an accident. Public transport needs a different kind of insurance. Regulation here ensures compliance.
Cab fleets, by virtue of being composed of multiple cabs, are able to comply with regulations regarding having a certain % of cabs and drivers prepared to handle disabled passengers. Uber, seeing as they exist in a weird limbo where they both represent all the cabs and none at the same time, has fought such restrictions (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/21/uber-disabi...).
A friend of mine recently got a German "Personenbeförderungsschein" (person transport permit) to work part-time at a chauffeur service (which, from what he told, is mostly identical to a taxi service).
There was no First Aid training involved as far as he told me, only a knowledge test of about 100 Points of Interest around the city, including routes to there and in some cases opening hours.
The theory is that taxicabs are a public service (especially in a city like New York).
My understanding of the history is that, around the time of the great depression, there was significant oversupply of taxis with fare wars and various unsavory tactics, including violence, for hustling business. From there, regulation grew over time helped along by the incumbents who benefited from it of course.
"the strikers, marching to the City Hall to-day to protest to the Mayor, stormed through the Lower Broadway, destroyed 30 cabs and assaulted 25 chauffeurs, leaving the men for the most part stripped of clothing lying in a bloody and dazed state in the streets. They then staged a final riot within sight of Laguardia's chambers, dragging men and women passengers from the taxis and beating the drivers unconscious."
I have a hard time understanding how regulating personal transit is a governmental matter. A taxi driver may overcharge me a significant amount, and then there are instances of physical confrontation, but these are both rare and a risk that is inherent in accepting a ride with another person. It seems to me that the benefit to society (less pollution, traffic, easier commute, automotive scrap waste, etc) outweighs these risks.