Excellent point. I think it is worth noting regulations can be classified into acute and chronic. Acute taxi regulation would have been disallowing criminal records after a series of rapes or robberies.

Chronic problems would be over charging - put it this way, the day before taxis were forced to charge a certain amount each mile, all taxis would have been free to charge different amounts as uber and lyft can.

We do ask for regulation - and always in response to symptoms. Regulation is not pre planned rational thought ...