This isn't a new trick. It's an old one. And the fact that it's still happening at one of the busiest airports on the West Coast tells you everything you need to know about how seriously the city takes regulating its taxi industry.

Let's be clear about what's going on here. San Francisco taxi drivers are required by law to accept credit cards. Full stop. The "broken machine" routine is either a scam to skim your card info, a dodge to avoid transaction fees, or a way to pocket unreported cash income. As one SF resident put it bluntly: "This is illegal, and an old trick they used to pull. They are required to accept credit card payment."

The frustrating part is that this is entirely avoidable — if you know the game. Seasoned travelers say you need to use the official designated taxi line outside baggage claim and ignore anyone waving you over near the terminal doors. As one local noted, "Unscrupulous drivers will try and wave you over to get in their cars; avoid these guys and go to the real line."

But here's the bigger picture: Why should navigating SFO ground transportation require street smarts and a survival guide? There's a reason Uber and Lyft were born in the Bay Area — as another resident put it, "taxi service has always been dogshit here." The rideshare revolution happened because the incumbents refused to compete, and regulators refused to hold them accountable.

And now the city faces a delicious irony. The taxi industry is dying, rideshare drivers are largely non-SF residents who aren't paying local taxes, and City Hall collects less revenue from both. The solution isn't complicated: enforce existing credit card laws, crack down on scam drivers at SFO, and create a regulatory framework that actually generates tax revenue from the transportation model people are already choosing.

But that would require our supervisors to do actual work — and we all know how that goes.