Riding with a stranger, even if it’s a licensed cabbie, always carried with it an element of risk — the risk of an unpleasant ride, or even a dangerous one.
But taking a taxi is a managed risk, managed largely by government overseers, so people are usually willing to use this well-established transportation solution.
When that layer of oversight is missing, though, the passengers are right to feel that their government has abandoned its duty and begin to think twice about trusting the system again.
A set of reforms proposed by a task force have been ignored so far by the City Council that called for the study — and that needs to change, fast.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporters Allison Schaefers and Dana Williams have delved into Honolulu’s changing cab services landscape — changing because of the entry of ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, with their smartphone-mediated customer rating tools.
But part of it hasn’t changed, and the need for modernization of this creaky regulatory scheme has become critical, especially in a city so dependent on the most frequent users of taxis: the tourists.
The city’s inept system for licensing drivers and tracking their performance hearkens to a pre-digital era, and thus is opaque to the people it’s supposed to protect. And it doesn’t enable the instant ratings that offer at least some consumer protection the government hasn’t provided.
Here are just a few of the problems:
>>Records are stored in a filing system that makes searching impractical. It’s hardly a surprise that some taxi drivers end up with multiple licenses, and that duplication doesn’t inspire confidence in the security of the credentialing system.
>> A help line meant for customer complaints about their ride leads callers to a dead-end connection with an unrelated city agency. Those complaints — with potential topics ranging from filthy cabs to rude service — seemingly go nowhere.
>> The background checks only go back two years, and they only cover crimes that occur in Hawaii. That lapse seems preposterous, and given the vulnerability it presents, intolerable.
One person who slipped through that crack was cab driver Enio Tablas, now awaiting trial on charges of sexually assaulting two female passengers last year. He had passed the city’s taxi driver criminal background check which, because of its limitations, missed earlier convictions on various offenses in this state and in California.
Modernization would mean closing all those gaps — creating a hotline that really works, expanding background checks, digitizing the licensing database. But there’s also the opportunity to use app technology to make taxi companies more accountable to consumers.
Other cities, including Los Angeles and New York, have been exploring ways to beat Uber and Lyft at their own game, deploying competing taxi-hailing apps. In New York, companies have moved independently to adopt existing app technology, but elected officials there also have toyed with requiring the city to develop its own.
That would be a wonderful development in Honolulu as well, but the most critical information-technology need is even more basic. Consumers need a way to go online to research complaints about cab companies and their drivers.
The task force recommendations, beyond expanding criminal checks, include other good ideas, such as adding cybercrimes and identity theft or fraud to the list of red-flag offenses barring taxi license applicants, and exploring ways the Honolulu Police Department could boost enforcement.
Honolulu is a visitor destination that has several deficiencies to overcome, starting with the shabbiness tourists see immediately upon arrival to its dreary airport, with a taxi and shuttle service that constrains competition and quality.
Not the least of its problems, however, is the one unveiled this week: a system of regulating taxis that, simply put, is not up to the task.
