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In cities such as Bangkok or New Delhi, taxi's are very plenty, and not very expensive, so extremely useful important piece of infrastructure (except the traffi

In cities such as Bangkok or New Delhi, taxi's are very plenty, and not very expensive, so extremely useful important piece of infrastructure (except the traffic jams). However, in cities in Europe, the price of a taxi is simply way too high. Whether you can afford it or not, paying 20 Euros to be transported a few KM or 70 Euros if it's a few 10 KM's is just too insanely high. It is more something for abnormal occasions only.

Grue3 12y ago
Taxis in Bangkok are really something. There is so many of them and they are constantly driving around the city, most of them empty (red light). The economics of this must be really strange. Don't they have to pay for gas? How much fuel is burned by keeping all these cars in motion (not that there's anywhere to park them anyway).
CaptainZapp 12y ago
In Bangkok Taxis are dirt cheap. What I noticed, though, are more and more cabs with doctored meters. That can be rather small time. For example: manipulating the kilometers driven in order to get a higher fare at the destination, or it can be very, very blatant. I once took a cab from the airport to Silom. The initial fare was correct (35bt), but then the meter immediately went into cardiac arrest mode and just went ape shit. This shouldn't be the case. The 35bt entry fee (about $1) gets you about a mile (depending on wait times), before it slowly goes up in 2 bt intervals. That meter must have been doctored by a factor of 10 - 15 (which I thought stupid as hell, because instantly noticeable). A trip to my hotel at that meter rate would easily have been 3000 - 5000 baht. Instead of the normal 300 - 400 bt. However, this being Thailand, what you should never, ever do is directly accusing the driver. There's that face saving thing, that Thais take very, very seriously. Accusing him may get you into one of the less touristy areas in town, where you meet a number of the driver's friends wielding crow bars and baseball bats. And I'm not exaggerating here. I resolved the dilemma, by pretending to consult my watch, making a shocked face and mumbling something around the line of "oh, Friday; traffic very, very bad in Bangkok, please bring me to Skytrain station"). The interesting thing was he knew that I knew, but didn't make any problems and brought me there. While this example was extreme I experienced multiple rides that where slightly more expensive than they should have been in Bangkok. So: beware!

Grue3 12y ago

Taxis in Bangkok are really something. There is so many of them and they are constantly driving around the city, most of them empty (red light). The economics of this must be really strange. Don't they have to pay for gas? How much fuel is burned by keeping all these cars in motion (not that there's anywhere to park them anyway).

CaptainZapp 12y ago

In Bangkok Taxis are dirt cheap. What I noticed, though, are more and more cabs with doctored meters. That can be rather small time. For example: manipulating the kilometers driven in order to get a higher fare at the destination, or it can be very, very blatant. I once took a cab from the airport to Silom. The initial fare was correct (35bt), but then the meter immediately went into cardiac arrest mode and just went ape shit. This shouldn't be the case. The 35bt entry fee (about $1) gets you about a mile (depending on wait times), before it slowly goes up in 2 bt intervals. That meter must have been doctored by a factor of 10 - 15 (which I thought stupid as hell, because instantly noticeable). A trip to my hotel at that meter rate would easily have been 3000 - 5000 baht. Instead of the normal 300 - 400 bt. However, this being Thailand, what you should never, ever do is directly accusing the driver. There's that face saving thing, that Thais take very, very seriously. Accusing him may get you into one of the less touristy areas in town, where you meet a number of the driver's friends wielding crow bars and baseball bats. And I'm not exaggerating here. I resolved the dilemma, by pretending to consult my watch, making a shocked face and mumbling something around the line of "oh, Friday; traffic very, very bad in Bangkok, please bring me to Skytrain station"). The interesting thing was he knew that I knew, but didn't make any problems and brought me there. While this example was extreme I experienced multiple rides that where slightly more expensive than they should have been in Bangkok. So: beware!