All of that livery, car #, driver info, etc is security theatre. So are background checks. If you get in a taxi with serious malicious intent, you're in trouble, full stop. Whatever limited protection they do yield is basically redundant with the license plate number.
You're confusing correlation with causation in declaring that unregulated taxi service leads to dangerous taxi service.
Well everything is security theater then. We can always come up with some absurd scenario where no amount of safety precautions will keep you safe. The difference with a regulated service is that if you do disappear into some warehouse somewhere to be sold off for parts. There's at least a chance somebody in dispatch, or your relatives, or a witness can provide a lead. Jump in a random beater and you're gone forever.
So I guess go on being proud of assuming idiotic risks the next time you hop in a beat up Toyota Tercel in Mexico City or wherever because some random guy offers to give you ride for cheap. You don't really need both of your kidneys.
I won't argue statistics with you, but the incidents of people disappearing into some Central American jungle are far higher when morons on holiday jump in the back of unmarked "taxis" vs. taking a regulated service.
I mean, it was only the #2 method for the FARC to finance their operations for a few decades, and they weren't doing it with vehicles from the regulated taxi system. Which is one of the reasons it was so hard to put a stop to. But we'll just discount that.
When James Watson was killed in Bogota, you know what brilliant method was used to track down the perpetrators? Video showing the livery on the cab he took.
But no, go on. Prove me wrong. Please. Go ahead. You show me. Run with those scissors. Play with that fire. Drink that sewer water. Spin that revolver barrel.
There's absolutely no reason the state department issues explicit guidelines on taxi usage for certain countries, and those guidelines are almost always "use a taxi from a well regulated taxi service"
That has nothing to do with taxi regulations and everything to do with a complete lack of law and order in the countries you mentioned. Even if it's just 1% easier to kidnap a foreigner because they got into the wrong taxi than just to point a gun at them and grab them off the street, you're going to see it become the dominant form of kidnapping. Doesn't mean taxi regulations would do anything to solve it.
I would assume that a large part of it has to do with the fact that the people that commit the crimes recognize an opportunity in pretending to be an unregulated taxi and then when they get a rider they seize the opportunity they have created for themselves.
These same people wouldn't be able to do this as Uber drivers because despite being unregulated, Uber has a detailed record of what driver was dispatched, where you were picked up, where the driver drove (at least until they turn off the uUber app), etc.
Now, of course that doesn't mean that any random Uber driver couldn't just snap and decide they were going to rape and murder their passenger, but of course they would be caught if they did, the same way that a taxi driver would be caught for much the same reason (regulated or not).
It actually seems like Uber would have an advantage because you cannot hail an uber anonymously on the side of the road like you can with a taxi. If I summon an Uber there will always at least be a record of everything up to the moment I got in the car.
If I hail a perfectly (legal, regulated) taxi from the side of the road and get in, then the driver snaps and decides to rape or murder me, unless I noted the license plate number or something like that and sent it to someone, there's no record.
In fact, I don't even have to have a phone with me, so there may be absolutely no record of the transaction or the fact that I had an interaction with the driver at all, anywhere.
I think in these countries you wouldn't see rapes and murders occurring from Uber drivers, but rather still from "unregulated taxi" drivers who aren't really unregulated taxis but "criminals pretending to be taxis", something they can't do with Uber.
These same people wouldn't be able to do this as Uber drivers because despite being unregulated
But his point is that after Uber there will be services that don't operate that way. And Uber is not a great option for everybody (older people, tourists with no cellphone connection or really expensive data roaming) Or why give Uber 20% when you can just drive up yourself at the bar?
Laws against murder and rape are security theatre. If you are approached by a murderer or rapist with serious malicious intent, you're in trouble, full stop.
This kind of argument is silly, that the mere simple existence of criminality is more important than the frequency of it.
You're confusing correlation with causation in declaring that unregulated taxi service leads to dangerous taxi service.