Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Apparently all the real crime in Miami has been solved if they've got time to run sting operations to catch elderly men being nice to someone who needs a ride. Seriously.
A man who said he thought he was just helping a woman in need is accused of running an illegal taxi service.Miami-Dade County's Consumer Services Department has slapped Rosco O'Neil with $2,000 worth of fines, but O'Neil claims he is falsely accused.
"I ain't running nothing illegal," O'Neil said.
Here's the story:
The 78-year-old said he was walking into a Winn-Dixie to get some groceries when he was approached by a woman who said she needed a ride."She asked me, 'Do I do a service?'" O'Neil said. "I told her no. She said, 'I need help getting home.'"
O'Neil told the woman if she was still there when he finished his shopping, he would give her a ride. She was, so he did.
As it turned out, the woman was an undercover employee with the consumer services department targeting people providing illegal taxi services.
"She said the reason she targeted him (is because) she saw him sitting in his car for a few minutes," said Ellen Novodeletsky, O'Neil's attorney.
After O'Neil dropped off the woman, police surrounded him, issued him two citations and impounded his minivan. On top of the fees, it cost O'Neil an additional $400 to retrieve his minivan from the impound lot.
And here's the really bizarre part:
"It's not entrapment because she didn't expect him to provide her transportation," said Sonya Perez, a spokeswoman for the consumer services department.
*Spit-take* Huh? Boy, I sure am glad our government bureaucrats are out there protecting us from the scourge of 78 year old men giving rides to people. I feel so much safer now.
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what utter bullshit.
They haven't proven he was running an illegal taxi service anyway; all they did was prove he gave one person a ride. To prove he was running an illegal taxi service he'd have to 1) accept a fare, 2) pick up people for rides frequently during the day and be observed doing this, 3) solicit people in some way to drum up business, 4)operate said business without a license and without reporting the income o his taxes. At minimum, to prove an illegal taxi service, you'd have to prove those 4 points, I think. Hopefully this guy will get a decent lawyer and get some just compensation from these scumbags.
Posted by: Julian | May 21, 2008 9:42 AM
hmm must be something wrong with my 'n' button; that should be "on his taxes"
Posted by: Julian | May 21, 2008 9:44 AM
Coorect me if I'm wrong, but wouldnt it only be considered a 'service' (even in the loosest sense of the word) if he actually tried to charge her for giving a ride?
I guess anytime someone offers someone a ride, they need to ask if they are a police officer first.
Posted by: FastLane | May 21, 2008 9:48 AM
Julian is probably right on all counts except 4b (not reporting the income). That's a separate matter, but his other points are right on-target, because in almost every city in the U.S. you have to have a license to operate a cab.
This is one of my pet issues as a) I'm a political economist, and b) I used to drive a cab.
The cab cartels in the U.S. are one of the least understood aspects of economic regulation. Nearly everyone believes taxicab rates are regulated to protect customers, when the truth is they're their to protect cabbies from competition. They don't have to bargain with customers, they can just tell customers that's the legally defined rate, and people accept that they have to pay it. (Sometimes, if there are multiple cabs waiting around, you can bargain with them and get a cheaper rate, but the cabbie who goes along with that risks making enemies, so there's peer enforcement of the system as well.)
In addition, most cities dramatically limit the number of taxicab licenses available, also to limit competition. It would be all right if the purpose of licensing was just to ensure safe drivers and vehicles, but that's not the case. Some of the cabs I was assigned in San Francisco frightened the hell out of me--I had one that I couldn't keep in the lane, and many that had malfunctioning brakes and windshield wipers.
I think gypsy cabbing is an honorable occuption, as it undermines this anti-consumer regulatory system. But I don't think giving a ride--apparently for free--to a stranger counts. As long as there's no actual benefit received by the ride-giver, he hasn't engaged in commercial activity, so he hasn't violated the law.
Posted by: James Hanley | May 21, 2008 10:21 AM
Hang on a sec - if I carpool with some of my co-workers, and charge, say, $5.00 a head a week for gas money, I'm running an illegal cab service?
If not, what's the difference? Just that I know the co-workers?
For that matter, someone offers me some money for gas, if I give them a lift - is this also an illegal cab service?
I can not describe just how stupid this is without using profanity.
Posted by: bill | May 21, 2008 12:02 PM
bill: Indeed. There is a blurb in the June issue of Reason magazine about a similar situation--no arrest involved, but possibly even more ridiculous. A woman in Pennsylvania received a warning letter from the PA Public Utility Commission claiming she was violating laws against carrying passengers for compensation by giving rides into town to her Amish neighbors, who give her gas money or homemade crafts in return.
Posted by: nicole | May 21, 2008 12:08 PM
They might be right about it not being entrapment, but only because he doesn't seem to have done anything illegal. If he did do something illegal, then it sure as hell is entrapment and just saying it's not doesn't make it so.
Posted by: Pustulio | May 21, 2008 12:35 PM
Pustulio, based on the high-bar set by this administration, though, saying, "We don't do entrapment" (or similar statement) "must" mean that what happened wasn't entrapment. (I mean a public authority figure said it, so it must be true, right?)
Posted by: Umlud | May 21, 2008 12:46 PM
Using this logic in Nicole's example, simply car-pooling, without receiving money, would be illegal:
You ride with your three co-workers eaching taking a week, you gain the benefit of not paying for gas (and thus saving money) the three weeks you don't drive.
So much for economic and civic responsibility...
Posted by: dogmeatIB | May 21, 2008 12:53 PM
The local police forces should pool their assets to make up a task force to target local schools when classes let out for the day. Every mom in line to pick up her kid gets hit with a $2000 fine. Figure forty cars -- wow, that'd be $80,000 -- and that would be just one school on one day!
Posted by: Gilipollas Caraculo | May 21, 2008 12:54 PM
"She asked me, 'How much you charging?'" O'Neil said. "I said, 'Anything you give me.' She said, 'No, I need a price.'"
So, apparently after arriving at the destination, she offers to pay him. So, if I drive my buddy home after his car breaks down, and he offers me gas money and I accept it, then I'm breaking the law by running an illegal taxi service? Awesome.
Posted by: Deepsix | May 21, 2008 2:18 PM
IANAL, but that sure as hell sounds to me like manipulating someone into committing an illegal act that they were not predisposed to commit. It doesn't sound like he even expected to be paid, though he wouldn't turn down a few bucks.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | May 21, 2008 3:37 PM
"IANAL, but that sure as hell sounds to me like manipulating someone into committing an illegal act that they were not predisposed to commit."
Me too. Isn't that pretty much the definition of entrapment? That the person nabbed was not predisposed to commit the act?
Posted by: BaldApe | May 21, 2008 5:34 PM
There's a good analogue between this case and the preacher/underage sex one that precedes this post. In that case, as is, I believe, generally done in those cases, the officer posing as the underage girl electronically flirts with the target, but waits for the target to suggest meeting. If the police officer suggested the meeting, it could be entrapment. In the taxi case, the undercover person was the first to suggest the illegal behavior, so it's much more likely to be (legally) entrapment.
But it also sounds like bad police tactics. If they're really worried about people running illegal taxi services they shouldn't target random people, but should have had the old lady standing around looking helpless and waited for the "criminal" to approach her. Then, again, we're talking about Miami--the U.S.'s own little banana republic.
Posted by: James Hanley | May 21, 2008 8:10 PM
Mr. Hanley's second post hints at an underlying problem of greater significance that this illegal taxi "sting" is merely an expression of. The fundamental concept of U.S. law should be that a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. These sorts of tactics, where the police suggest illegal or vaguely illegal action and then arrest whoever goes along with it, shows that many police forces have abandoned that noble principle for the much easier to follow and fine-generating "everyone is guilty, we just need to find out how" approach.
An interesting question is when this approach stops being overzealous law enforcement and starts to become rent taking.
Posted by: Julian | May 22, 2008 8:46 AM
that should be "when does" in the last sentence.
Posted by: Julian | May 22, 2008 8:47 AM
What?
This was *after* he'd driven her home, you say?
...
Irrelevant! She still didn't expect it, and when a government spokesperson says something, it's the truth, no matter what the "facts" or "reality" says, damnit! [/sarcasm]
Posted by: Kaerion | May 22, 2008 9:15 AM
Who's the idiot with the Winn-Dixie sting idea? I'd like to see the numbers on that one. "Uh, we got one guy." Wouldn't this be more effective (and lucrative) at the airport? Are there really that many people taking taxis to and from the grocery in Miami?
Jeez.
Posted by: bullet | May 23, 2008 7:47 PM