Segway is just plain cheap

Reader comment on: Tour-Guide Licensing Lawsuit

Submitted by Kookie (United States), Sep 17, 2010 21:04

The Libertarians are full of themselves. No Government tells DC tour guides what to say. It does seem, however, that Segway Tours, the business behind the lawsuit, simply wants to hire unlicensed people to save money. It has no interest in helping them to get licenses--and learn what they need to learn to pass the test. It has an interest in hiring "guides" for rock bottom wages (which licensed guides will not accept).

I do wonder if the next move by Libertarians will be to challenge the bar exam. After all, why should any business have a license to do anything--or any training whatsoever.

The only entity dictating what people will say here--and, ahem, impeding free speech--is Segway Tours. They use their underpaid employees as straw men in this lawsuit. rather than pay their fees to help them pass the test. Segway Tours are, by the way, on the expensive end of the tours you can take of DC.

The licensing test for DC guides has been around for years. The only thing that has changed recently is that the process has been made easier so that people do not have to jump through so many hoops. There is nothing to prevent anyone from getting a license (except maybe if they don't want to learn the material). Of course, you have to pay the fees for the license and they can be annoying but there have always been fees for tour guide licenses in DC.

And, why, pray tell, won't Segway hire licensed guides? It doesn't want to pay them licensed rates. So, it hires unqualified people. I don't know what sort of training Segway puts its people through. Perhaps they just memorize a schpiel (and have their freedom of speech impeded by requiring them to repeat it word for word). I wonder if anyone at Segway in management has a guide license at all. If so, they have an unqualified person training them.

This silly lawsuit is just Segway's effort to hire unqualified guides and palm them off as tour guides to unsuspecting tourists. If they want to stay in business, they should hire qualified people and pay them accordingly.

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Other reader comments on this item

Title	By	Date
⇒ Segway is just plain cheap [w/response] [361 words]	Kookie	Sep 17, 2010 21:04
No different than taxi licenses [106 words]	Lyle	Sep 17, 2010 17:02

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