Yellow cabs are the city’s worst public transportation. I’d rather be pawed by 100 strangers on the subway than suffer a typical taxi’s Penn Station/3 a.m. squalor — even at noon.

The sorry state of the “regulated” taxi industry is the main reason why Uber and its ilk deserve free rein on our streets. Never mind that elected officials have (for now) backed off a threat to mess with pricing — they’re trying to cap new licenses issued for drivers of app-based companies.

These pols merit public, Saudi-style lashings for flagrantly flouting the public good.

If Uber, Lyft and their ilk were to push the entire yellow “industry” — a bunch of fleet owners who pumped $550,000 into Bill de Blasio’s mayoral campaign — into the Hudson River, we’d be a happier city.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission’s feckless oversight dehumanizes hard-working drivers as it does passengers. Twelve-hour shifts in the world’s worst traffic!

The TLC is Public Enemy No. 1 of public agencies.

It can’t even prevent nearly half of the yellow fleet from disappearing at rush hour — a challenge the TLC regards as comparable to splitting the atom.

It isn’t breaking news that yellow cabs are wretched rattletraps that leave you at the curb if a driver doesn’t like your looks. Yet their Third World-level of service has gotten a near-free pass in the debate over Uber.

Shock absorbers? Reliable credit-card machines? Ha!

The claim that Uber drivers don’t receive adequate background checks is risible given the anarchy behind the yellow wheel.

After dark especially, most every taxi I take, stinking of spoiled food and flatulence, is piloted by a cellphone-yakking zombie despite a “crackdown.”

Occasional TLC “discoveries” of price gouging, like one in 2010, are mere speed bumps to drivers who laugh off spotty enforcement — a task the TLC charmingly dumps on passengers. Just report bad drivers to us! We’ll get them, you betcha!

My drivers at least half the time choose a time- and money-wasting circuitous route, turning off from traffic-free avenues to plunge into gridlocked cross-streets.

Heading uptown from the West Village last week, I gave my driver my easy-to-find, East 76th Street address. I even helpfully mentioned it was between Second and First avenues. The obvious, easiest way to get there was to take Third, Madison or Park Avenue uptown and turn right on East 76th — as any competent (or, perhaps, honest) cab driver would have known off the bat.

And yet my driver took First Avenue instead — meaning he’d have to turn left on 77th Street, then south on Second Avenue and then east on 76th Street. I got out before he could run up another buck on the meter.

But at least he didn’t “lose control” and drive into a store, as occurs with remarkable frequency for cabs traveling at 15 mph.

Nor did he sideswipe another taxi as mine, license no. GP-61, did on Madison Avenue on March 27, only to proceed on his merry way after agreeing with the other driver not to report it; or set his meter 50 percent higher than the legal fare.

Of course, Uber-loathers prefer to change the subject and frame the debate in preposterous ideological terms.

How much has Uber added to traffic? Does “surge pricing” violate consumer affairs rules, or maybe the US Constitution? As if city cabs have any standing to complain about their competitors’ surge pricing, considering the city cabs themselves were caught price-gouging — after Hurricane Sandy, of all times.

So, in the “progressive” spirit, let’s indeed subject Uber to more TLC control.

Why shouldn’t all citizens be able to enjoy suspense-filled thrill rides where just about anything can happen?