A former cab driver’s view

Re: Saying yes to extortion, William Watson, Aug. 22 Having been a cab driver in Toronto for many years up until the mid-1990s I can assure you that just to eke out a survival drivers have to work much more than the usual five days per week, eight hours a day. How is it you have no sympathy for them? Where did you get the idea that taxi drivers commit “highway robbery”?

I suggest as an experiment you get a taxi driver’s license from the city and try driving for a living. Uber has destroyed the taxi business everywhere it operates. You like unlicensed, untrained and unskilled drivers? Would you prefer this also with plumbers, electricians, engineers, doctors, lawyers and clergy? As a matter of fact, by what virtue do you hold your job? Your job should be open to anyone who wants to write a column. Your newspaper protects you. Why should it? Why not force newspapers to publish opinions on a first come, first served basis? Wouldn’t the public be better served than the current practice where those with favoured bias get tenure and their material published?

What do you think will happen when all municipal taxi authorities in the world are weakened or become defunct? Prices of transportation will be manipulated by Uber just like oil. Uber’s drivers don’t do any better than taxi drivers. Your view of “competition” is quite limited because an overview would inform you that we are headed back to feudal times where a few own everything. Howard Bockner, Toronto