Don't Blame The Apps For What The State Did

The growing success of ride sharing apps like Lyft and Uber has meant a decrease in business for many taxi drivers in recent years. As a result, we've already seen a variety of protests take place over the years, with taxi drivers becoming enraged at the competition and even resorting to physical violence at times, attacking ride-sharing drivers and their property; some have had their cars smashed and torched..

Now, a growing number of taxi drivers have committed suicide and their loved ones have reportedly suggested that it's likely because of the incredible mountain of debt that they face as a result of obtaining their wildly overpriced taxi medallions.

As for the people who use either service, who just need to find a transportation solution that will get them to where they need to go, they don't care if it comes from yellow cabs or Uber, Lyft, or some other service, the consumers are going to go with what works best for them.

This means that people will likely choose the option that will offer the best price and the most convenience etc. For too long, passengers have had to settle for lower standards because of the limited competition that's been available in this market; they have had to repeatedly suffer because of the greed of those who hold and seek to maintain a monopoly in this industry.

One previous study on taxi and ride-sharing services found that the new competition is much faster than your traditional taxi.

Regardless of when you are ordering a ride, with those competitors like Uber and Lyft the study found that about 90 percent of their passengers had been picked up in 10 mins or less.

For taxis, it was less than 40 percent of passengers who had been picked up within 10 minutes. Not only did the competition perform faster but they've also been the cheaper option for many.

Back in 2014, it's reported that a taxi medallion for New York was worth over $1 million and many taxi drivers took on a great deal of debt so that they could secure their medallion. After all, it was a sure thing they thought.

Other drivers are leasing their cab from a medallion owner and now they cannot afford to make payments that they owe. For the cost of a medallion today, that price has dropped drastically from over $1 million a few years ago to around $100k now.

Taxi driver suicides have been on the rise lately and now the issue has prompted the city of New York to respond and they've indicated that they are planning to waive millions of dollars in fees to try and alleviate some of the pressure that the taxi drivers are facing; having to pay for various regulatory fees.

As another potential solution to try and alleviate some of the pain, this past summer, Uber CEO D. Khosrowshahi recommended that the company seek to place an additional surcharge on every fare, so that they could use that money to establish a hardship fund that could potentially go toward helping some of those struggling taxi drivers.

Taxi drivers are struggling with thousands of dollars in debt because they had to pay for permission to serve people in their community, to drive for them they had to first pay for access to a medallion.

As always, these sorts of limitations on our freedom are often given under the guise of “promoting safety” for the consumers, but reducing competition and as a consequence quality of service, doesn't make for a safer environment. Attempting to centrally control and limit the supply of drivers that can offer rides has resulted in a mess that hasn't promoted the best interest of the people. With competition comes freedom and people should have the freedom to pursue an alternative that can adequately meet their needs.

Pics:
Pixabay

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