Sure, it is one single letter to the editor expressing frustration with taxicab service in the City but it is the latest in a long litany of complaints about getting reliable cab service that go back a long time. But if the writer’s recollection of the conversation with the dispatcher is verbatim—“that drivers are independent contractors who decide which orders to pick up”—it would be nearly identical to what the head of the dominant cab company in Pittsburgh said back in 2004 that the “drivers are independent contractors who choose where and when they want to work”.
Let’s agree that the heightened amount of regulation the Public Utility Commission places upon taxicabs as opposed to say, property movers or charter buses (regulated for safety and insurance only) has merit. Passengers should be in a clean car with rates posted and the outside of the car marked and in a vehicle that has been inspected with a qualified driver.
But the guidelines that state “The [Public Utility] Commission will grant motor common carrier authority commensurate with the demonstrated public need unless it is established that the entry of a new carrier into the field would endanger or impair the operations of existing common carriers to an extent that, on balance, the granting of authority would be contrary to the public interest” have to be reexamined. If cab drivers are independent contractors who are deciding the best method in which to make money, how can a regulatory agency determine the public interest short of letting applicants who meet base requirements operate and those that succeed do so and those that are not responsive fail?
That would be ideal, but incumbent carriers in Pittsburgh (and elsewhere) object to every new application and try to control cab supply via the regulatory process. Of course, this is to protect “market share” while at the same time patrons who are stranded are told drivers are their own bosses.
