You may find this hard to believe, but there was a time in the early days of motorised transport when cars were not allowed to drive faster than 6.4km/h (no, I didn’t misplace the decimal point).
If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, some commercial motor vehicles weren’t allowed on public roads unless someone carrying a red flag walked in front of them.
These were among a series of draconian laws enacted in Britain and parts of the US from the mid-1860s, reportedly backed by railroad barons who were scared of the competition posed by the newfangled “road locomotives”.
In the end, all their lobbying was in vain and a new set of car-friendly laws was passed around the turn of the 20th century, paving the way – sometimes quite literally – for the explosive growth of the motor industry.
Fast forward 120 years and a similar rearguard battle is playing itself out on the streets of cities around the world – Durban, Cape Town and Joburg among them.
This time, the upstart is the ride-hailing smartphone app, Uber, and the part of the rail barons is being played by the metered taxi industry.
If you’ve used Uber, you’ll know why taxi operators are worried. Hailing a ride is as easy as opening the app and pressing a button. It almost always comes more quickly than a metered taxi and the car is invariably newer and cleaner. You can monitor your progress using the app’s built-in map and share this info in real time with family and friends, a boon for the safety conscious.
And because your credit card details are already loaded into the app, there’s no faffing around with cash or card machines. To cap it all, an Uber ride is usually significantly cheaper.
So it’s not surprising that Uber has experienced explosive growth around the world since it was founded in San Francisco in 2009 with just a single car. It’s now valued at a staggering $40 billion.
In South Africa, the company has clocked up two million rides this year, double last year’s total.
Now the metered taxi companies are fighting back, co-ordinating protest marches and calling on the government to clamp down on Uber which they accuse of flouting the laws that regulate public transport.
In Cape Town, the authorities seem to be siding with the old guard and 200 vehicles belonging to Uber-affiliated drivers have been impounded, supposedly because the drivers were unable to produce valid operating licences.
Uber disputes this, saying that many of the affected drivers had valid operating licences and most others were waiting for licences they’d applied for months previously – a process that’s supposed to take a few weeks.
I do have sympathy for the traditional operators. I work in an industry (print publishing) that’s been severely disrupted by the internet. But the answer isn’t to lobby government to clamp down on the new, more popular kids on the block. It’s to recognise why people prefer the newcomers and to change the way we do business to better match the new reality.
The news industry is working hard to do this. While many of you will be reading this column in print in the Sunday Tribune, others will be reading it online at www.iol.co.za or using the My Independent app.
The metered taxi industry needs to undertake a similar process of reinvention. They won’t get me back as a customer by trying to shut down Uber. I’ll consider using them again when they can offer a service that’s as pleasant, quick, easy and cheap as Uber.
But for this to happen, the government needs to play its part. The incumbents have a point when they complain that they can never be as nimble as Uber while they have to play by rules dating back nearly 100 years.
Taxi meters are an example of this. With the advent of cellular and GPS technology, insisting that taxis have meters makes about as much sense as telling drivers they must carry buggy whips.
What’s needed is a progressive set of new laws that embraces advances in technology, allows all parties to compete on an even playing field and unlocks an era of reasonably-priced, consumer-friendly public transport.
What we’ve got at the moment is the modern day equivalent of the man with a red flag.
Follow @alanqcooper on Twitter.