Uber.gov—it’s Time to Let the Government Drive

Flying to Vegas? Look to your left. Now look to your right. Statistically speaking, one of you is about to get ripped off by a cabbie. And it’ll probably be you, the imbecile who chose the middle seat and paid $15 for plane wifi.

Taxi scams are nothing new, but here’s something novel: The Nevada state government is out-innovating Uber in attacking these scofflaws.

How the “Sin City Shuffle” works

There are two main routes to get from the Vegas airport to the Strip. One of them is illegal . To figure out which one you’re on, apply this test: Look outside. If you can’t find outside, you’re in a tunnel—which means you’re being ripped off.

The I-215 tunnel adds about $10 to your fare, but one in three cabbies “longhauled” undercover cops through it anyway. The country hasn’t seen this kind of brazenness since Bankerty Robberson opened a Skimask Hut outside Wells Fargo in 1979.

What can possibly be done about such a confounding crime? I had plenty of time to research this on a recent trip to Vegas, while my own cabbie, Mickey, drove me to the Bellagio by way of Montpelier, Vermont.

Uber’s naive solution

Uber’s absurd answer to longhauling is straight from your childhood: When a driver behaves badly, he only gets one star. Within hours, Uber adjusts your fare. Their systems can do this automatically because they have everything they need to calculate an “ideal” fare—start point, end point, traffic conditions, and past fares. If the driver keeps scamming others, he automatically gets fired.

But Nevada officials found fault in Uber’s stars. In fact, they kicked the company out of town for not protecting tourists.

I stand with Nevada and say—leave this to the pros.

Here’s the alternate five-point plan that Nevada’s Taxicab Authority devised after 45 years of experience regulating 26 million Vegas taxi rides.

Read more at Quartz.