This week I thought I would share with you two random thoughts on public policy.

First in response to one of our Fresh Perspective submissions last week by Reid Ginoza, “If the Private Sector were Free to Provide Transportation” came this zinger from Bob Leach:

The most cursory study of private rail transportation reveals that most lines become diseconomic after 20-30 years and sell out, consolidate or go into receivership.  Unhappily, the time it takes to found a railroad is quite long compared to the economic conditions it serves.

Moreover, when the government is involved there is a colossal waste.  Government operations are inately [sic] inefficient because:

• §          Government is fundamentally political and not productive.  It chronically resorts to political solutions to technical problems – square pegs in round holes.
• §          The government is not responsible for what it does.  It is largely a fiat operation and continues whether or not it produces.
• §          Government operations are subject to deliberate fraud and mismanagement.  It’s extremely difficult to prosecute government officials for malfeasance.  An endless argument and struggle at great expense with little hope of results.  There’s little in it for public advocates – not even gratitude.

Well said.  Except that, all is not hopeless.  Knowledge is power when communicated.  Although policy change seems too slow to most of us, it does evolve.

Then we have the case of Adam Mau-Goffredo who apparently took a taxicab to the Roundtop Drive lookout where he killed the cabdriver and two bystanders.  How is this related to public policy?  The Honolulu taxicab law lists as a prohibited act “No taxicab driver, while on duty and not engaged in another call, shall fail to drive an available taxicab in response to a call or request from an orderly person.”

This is a law mandating non-discrimination (except for disorderly persons, of course).  In other words, cab drivers by law are prohibited from exercising judgment and the discrimination that follows.  In the case at hand, adherence to the law may have been the first step in the chain of events which caused the death of the cabbie and two others.  The very experienced cab driver may have had some bad premonitions, only to set them aside in his “duty” to obey the law.  If so, his family should bring the city to court.

Please note that the law itself discriminates against taxicab drivers.  A young lady at a dance is not obligated by law to dance with every person who asks her.  A retail store owner is not obligated to serve all customers no matter the circumstances.  A voter at the polling place is expected to discriminate.  In fact, if she does not, the vote is invalidated.

I can just imagine a sting operation where government enforcers suspiciously or rudely try to flag down a cab and then bring him to court because he drives on by.  It seems to me that in a civil society, I should be smiling and friendly if I want a cab.  Further, the cabbie should be fully free to select pleasant me to serve instead of a hateful-looking someone else.

Finally, the above cited law, if carefully observed, would allow someone to take a cab to the shopping center, refuse to pay and escape into the crowd.  Then, the next week, hailing the same cab driver and if ignored, successfully lodge a legal complaint against him.

This Discrimination Against Taxi Drivers Ordinance (Sec. 12-1.4 in the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu) deserves a quick burial—no funeral applicable.