Yeah necessarily. The competition is completely welcome, and there are sketchball cabbies all over the entire world, the USA included. Any time you get into a cab you're taking a chance, especially in less-than-perfect cities in developing countries. Even then, some of my sketchiest cab rides were in places like Miami, NYC, etc, where this "regulation" is supposed to make it as safe as possible.

Any time you step into a cab you are trusting that person to get you somewhere in one piece. The only regulation that makes you safe is what's in the cabbie's head. I have never had an Uber or Lyft experience that even comes close to being as crappy as my best "yellow" cab experience.