Ban Uber?

The NBR's Jason Walls asked me for comment on Minister Bridges's warnings of a potential ban on Uber. His article is here ($).

I have a hard time seeing what consumers get out of Uber drivers getting a P endorsement over and above what Uber is already doing - and especially where Uber drivers and passengers are GPS tracked at every point along the journey. People who want a P-endorsed driver can hire a taxi that provides P-endorsed drivers. If the P-endorsement is so gosh-darned important, why aren't the incumbent cab operators advertising heavily about how their drivers have it? If customers really wanted that, then existing operators would have no need to worry about the competition.

While I think it would be best to ease back the taxicab regs across the board, it isn't nuts to see the app tracking as being a pretty decent substitute for existing safety regs that apply to standard taxis. And especially where customers can choose.