Colorado should upgrade Uber, Lyft regulations
Agrudge over cab fare produced themodern taxi industry: In 1907, businessman Harry Allen felt he got ripped off by a horse-drawn carriage that charged him $5 for a three-quarter-mile ride in New York City.
In an attempt to regulate fares, Allen launched his own cab company later that year in the same citywith “a parade of sixty-five shiny new red gasoline-powered French Darracq cabs, equipped with fare meters, down Fifth Avenue.”
This story can be found in the book “Taxi!: A Social History of the NewYork City Cabdriver.” And so it goes, much of the wild and colorful history of taxis is also a history of regulation.
“Taxi!,” for example, discusses journalist Vance Thompson’s 1906 observations of taxi drivers:
A man could “come out of Sing Sing [prison],” get “two greasy letters of recommendation,” and obtain a license without a background check. Thompson concluded that the “NewYork cabbie was the most slovenly in the world.”
Eventually, background checks were instituted on drivers. The first recorded traffic accident in NewYork City involved a cab and continuous incidents led to taxi insurance requirements. An overabundance of cabs fighting for customers— literally with their fists but also through unsustainable fare wars— led to NewYork City’s 1937 Haas Act, which refined the number of cabs on the street. It remains in use today.
In the Denver metro area, my cab company has pushed for taxi regulation in the name of public safety so that people know they are hopping into a legitimate car and there is accountability. Those regulations now in place include special license plates for taxis and photos of drivers displayed in the cabs.
But today, the taxi industry is portrayed as a bully that hides behind regulations to maintain a monopoly as it attempts to shut down businesses such as Uber and Lyft, which allow everyday people to use their personal vehicles to provide rides for the general public throughamobile phone app.
This is not just academic. On Dec. 2, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, long tasked with overseeing taxis, will hold another in a string of hearings on regulating companies such as Uber and Lyft (sometimes called Transportation Network Companies, or TNCs).
The PUC meeting comes amid two significant stories for the transportation industry in Colorado. InMarch, two women leaving theMiley Cyrus concert at the Pepsi Center hopped into a large black SUV, according to a Denver police report. They thought it was a high-end cab. Themale driver allegedly sexually assaulted one of the women after obtaining a cash payment from them and has not been found.
In October, just a fewblocks from the Pepsi Center, a woman hailed a Lincoln Town Car outside a LoDo bar, according to Crime Stoppers. The man behind the wheel may have portrayed himself as a professional driver.
Much like the Pepsi Center incident, the man had the woman get some cash from a bank, drove her near her home, and sexually assaulted her. He also remains at large.
Crime Stoppers is offer- ing a reward of up to $2,000. My company andTaxis on Patrol, whichworks to funnel crime tips from cabbies to Denver police, is offering an additional $2,500 reward.
It is unclear whether the Pepsi Center and LoDo incidents are related, or how many other similar incidents might have occurred.
But do distinct vehicle markings, specialized license plates, and a driver’s photo help people recognize a truly professional driver from a criminal? I believe they do.
And I thinkwe need to learn a lesson from the history of taxis rather than ignore it.