Crackdown on bad taxi drivers begins in Thailand
Thai authorities yesterday launched their campaign against taxis that do not follow the rules. There are more than 160,000 taxis operating in the streets of Bangkok and it is estimated that 10-20% of them do not have license.
Who travels regularly to Bangkok, has already seen a taxi restarting after you indicated your destination. It’s not that you want to go in a unsafe area, no, for me it was when I tried to go to Mochit bus terminal, it’s just that the driver does not want to go. But ie has no right to refuse a client. And sometimes, you had to struggle for the driver to use the meter, also mandatory. In short, the reputation of taxis in the Thai capital city is, for years, not very good.
A hotline for reporting “bad” taxis has even been set up (1584). In recent months, there has been many complaints against taxi drivers. Nearly 24,000 between October and July. Indeed, some of them do not accept Thai passengers and prefer taking foreigners who are more likely to accept unmetered trips and often make longer trips, refuse to start the meter and require an excessive price .
To stop these behaviours, controls will be numérous during the next 3 days, especially in the areas of bus stations and shopping malls where traffic is important. Violators could face a fine of 1,000 baht, or risk having their taxi license revoked.
But announcing the crackdown in advance and doing the controls for 3 days only, will probably make it not very effective. It’s easy to have perfect behavior during three days especially if it allows you to continue to break the rules after, no ?
