Cablog

CabVids

YouTube has plenty of taxi videos, most of them poor to average. Here's some of the craziest...

• A Japanese kid get suckered by a stunt cabbie
• An English woman loses her dress in a black cab
• Daytime clowns, nightime clowns
• Sydney cabbie argument
• No lanes in Cairo, no red lights in Hungary
• A female driver blazes around a German race track in a BMW M5 'taxi'
• A US cabbie falls asleep at the wheel, hilarious
• Don't sit up front with this cabbie, 'only stinking Israelis sit up front !'

And that's just the first eight pages, but enough for now.

Readers Rate Cabs

From the previous post, Comparing Cabs reader David Crawford writes an appraisal of his cab experiences in Seoul Korea,

Fares: Cheap. Really, really cheap. I have no sympathy for anyone that gets picked up for drunk-driving as it's so cheap to go out at night by cab.

Cab-drivers: The single most disagreeable people I met in my 5 years in Seoul. Cab-driving is one of the few jobs that ex-cons (and other screw-ups) can get.

One example: Getting into a cab at Kimpo Airport going to my place near the Grand Hyatt on Nam-san. The driver just says "20,000 won". (About $15 US.) I tell him "meter, meter", (meaning turn the meter on.) We go about a half-a-mile yelling at each other

"20,000 won"

"meter, meter"

etc., etc.

He finally turns on the meter. He then takes corners so fast that I'm flying around the backseat like crazy. We start going down Olympic Expressway, south of the Han River. I know which bridges we need to cross to get to the Grand Hyatt. He misses them all. I start yelling at him to cross the next bridge. His excuse? "I not know Grand Hyatt at". (Pure bullshit, the Grand Hyatt is huge, and can be seen from all over Seoul south of the Han. Plus, he's probably been there hundreds of times.)

Finally, we get to my place near the Hyatt, the meter says 14,000 won. ($10 US). I gave him 13,000, shorting him 1,000 for trying to pad the trip. (Usually the fare is around 12,000, if the cab-driver goes directly and doesn't try and screw around.) He takes it and says nothing, just takes off real fast. I feel sorry for his next passenger as he was really pissed.

Typical cab experience, at least if you're a foreigner. The cab-drivers never tried anything funny when I was out with Koreans. I think they knew better.

Feel free to relate in comments taxi appraisals from your part of the world ...

Comparing Cabs

Here's an interesting article on taxis in six major cities - London, New York, Tokyo, Bangkok, Paris and Sydney. Appearing last Sunday in the Travel section of The Age, writer Michael Challinger has a spray on negatives to expect from cabs in these cities,

• LONDON - You pay heavily for the privilege of being chauffeured by somebody with a well-trained memory. London cabbies use their iconic status to justify the highest fares outside Tokyo...
• NEW YORK - Their reputation, incidentally, is gruff but loveable. New York has even unofficially adopted the cabby as the city's mascot. Never mind the loveable part, they definitely live up to the gruff part. Especially if by gruff you really mean surly...
• TOKYO - Tokyo still has the dearest taxis in the world. If you're mad enough to take one from Narita Airport to the city centre the trip will set you back about $300. London's fares are now approaching Tokyo's, but the Japanese have a whopping 30 per cent late-night surcharge that still keeps them ahead...
• BANGKOK - Bangkok taxis are cheap: the flag fall is 35 baht (about $1.30) plus five baht (15 cents) a kilometre. That makes it an inexpensive place to get ripped off. In any case, the Thais are such delightful people - even the taxi drivers - that it's hard to begrudge them the occasional extra...
• PARIS - Mostly you will need to find a taxi rank, where you can expect to queue at least half an hour in peak periods. Peak periods include any time you might actually want to travel. Lunch or dinner time are out of the question as that's when the drivers take their meals. Nights are out, too; that's when they go to bed. At mid-morning or mid-afternoon you stand a chance...
• SYDNEY - Don't be too smug. Foreigners are telling similar tales about our own taxis. A few years back I was chatting to a Sydney driver. He wore an RSL badge so I was surprised when he told me the Japanese were his favourite nationality. He explained himself by describing a recent fare...

On the basis of Challinger's analysis, Paris presents as the worst taxi experience and Sydney the best - no surprise to this Sydney cabbie ! He also provides some passenger tips to avoid being ripped off. Read the whole article, if only to compare with your own taxi experiences in these cities.