Flagging down a ride

How to kill competition and drive up the cost for consumers -- just try a little overregulation, the way a Republican administration in Indianapolis is doing:

Seven cab companies are no longer able to operate in Indianapolis after their licenses were not renewed by the city's Department of Code Enforcement for a slew of major violations.

The crackdown means 160 taxicab drivers will be without a job until the companies adhere to city laws.

 Violations included not having a 24-hour dispatch center -- required by the city's taxi cab ordinance -- and not allowing department officials to inspect facilities or business logs and having incomplete logs.

[. . .]

Two of the companies -- A-Z Airport and Metro -- will no longer be able to operate as cab companies because officials will begin enforcing the city's requirement that each company have at least 20 vehicles in its fleet.

There's no good reason to require 24-hour dispatch centers or 20-cab fleets except to keep fussy little functionaries happy in the delusion that they are somehow protecting the public's well-being. On the other hand, those rogue businesses had "incomplete logs," so take their owners out and shoot them for not keeping the paperwork up to civil-servant standards. Bet the stuff isn't even in triplicate.

It's nice to know Fort Wayne is ahead of the game in some areas, and this is one of them.  Just this June, we went the other way and reduced the requirements for taxi companies. Councilwoman Liz Brown wanted to lower the requirement for cab companies from three cabs to two, and the other council members -- every single one of them -- said, hey, why not make it one? "This is a classic regulatory argument we're having here," our paper reported Councilman Mitch Harper, R-4th, as saying. Harper said regulations such as a requirement that a taxi company needs two (or three) vehicles pose "barriers to entry" for immigrants or anyone of meager economic means.

That means those dreaded, evil "gypsy cabs" will be free to roam our streets offering people cheap rides. More than 20 years ago, in 1987, the council voted to keep the gypsy cabs out, buying the argument of an existing company that "someone with just one cab could not provide service 24 hours a day and without long delays betweeen runs." Look at a lot of regulations and you will find a cozy relationship between government and existing business aimed at keeping out those upstart competitors. That's a good pattern to get away from. Hooray for Fort Wayne. Indianapolis is still behind the learning curve.