Taxi driver attack

[RDN]

I must say that I just do not recognise the Bangkok taxi drivers that so many have written about here. I lived in bkk Sukhumvit soi 13 for a year. Nearly every night I would either walk to my local pub or get a taxi from outside the apartment. Never a problem - in fact when I walked they would shout to me "soi 4?" and I would cheerfully shout back "Not tonight - walking!"

But when I did go by taxi they always took the shortest and quickest routes - so I knew the fare would be 45 baht if soi 3 was "rot tid" - traffic jammed - or 39 baht if clear.

And if they were all gone, I would walk into the soi and find one in the street who had dropped off his fare - again, never a problem.

Coming back I would usually walk but if I got a taxi they would take me the same short route (doing an illegal U-turn in Sukhumvit Road) to my soi.

I think maybe people who have problems do so because their attitude is plain wrong. If they talk "down" to the driver, or loudly, or act drunk or act the "big farang with lots of money" then they will surely p1ss off the driver.

If you say "sawatdee khrap" getting in, you are probably 90% of the way to making a friend.

An aggressive attitude will get you trouble - the same as anywhere in the world.

[RDN]

I was with a bunch of girls and we hailed a cab and took it back to my hotel. I got in the front seat to squeeze em all in the back (it was mint making 6M baht a year living in BKK). After a few minutes the Taxi driver reached over and grabbed my stomach laughing at me calling me pom poo ee (fat).

I wasnt that fat so i looked over at the driver and reached over grabbed his fat gut and said "Ting Tong, you pom poo ee- same moo".  Man this guy got steamed and I could of fried an egg on his forehead. Nothing happened but I watched his hands the rest of the way.

Maybe you returned his playful remark (about you being "pom poo ee" - fat) with a more insulting remark about him being "ting tong" - crazy.

And often it's not what you say but the way that you say it that counts.

[Crash999]

He faces this life 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year with absolutely no prospect of an improvement in his situation in the future.

Good post, Brownstone- though the cabbies do make a bit more than that, especially if they can get regular customers, or dupe guys into going to their 'recommended' massage parlors.

I've taken hundreds of cab rides and most of them are fine. It's the bad ones that stand out, of course.

When I'm working with customers I almost always take a private car or rented van to our work destinations. By sheer bad luck on the time I did take a taxi, the driver wound up being a nutcase.

I was sitting in the front seat and he kept going on and on and on about this and about that, speaking rudely... and then started touching my leg!!! After that he tried to speak Japanese with me and started driving like he wasn't in total control. It was bad enough that I thought about stopping the taxi and getting a new one, but as we were close to our destination and I didn't want to scare my customers, so I just grimaced and waited it out. Didn't give my customer a great impression of the locals, though they laughed about it later.

Lots of 'no change for 100 baht' scenarios over the years, though when it becomes clear that I'll go into Family Mart to break a 100 into change or call down my girlfriend from upstairs, suddenly the change appears.

Worst experience was a couple of years ago when there was a flood. I was meeting a friend at the old DeMeglio restaurant on Soi 11 and had walked most of the way down. I was about 200m away when I realized I couldn't walk the last little bit as the street was flooded in that area. So I flagged down a cab and told him to take me to the restaurant.

We drove 200m and turned left into the small soi next to the restaurant. I got out 40 baht and noticed that he hadn't bothered to turn on his meter. I handed over 40 baht, thinking we both know how much it should be, and he tells me, 'no... 60 baht'. I asked him what he was talking about and told him it should actually be 35 baht. No meter and it's raining, he told me, he can make any price he wants. The exchange continued a bit longer and I got pissed off, really pissed off... I took a 50 baht note, threw it at the guy, and got out of the cab. I looked back and could see him glaring at me. At that point I had two choices... start mouthing off at him (which was very very very tempting) or just turn and walk inside. I did the latter, obviously the better choice, but at the time it's not easy to think so clearly.

A friend of mine (I'll call him Bill) got into a worse altercation with a cab driver. This story was actually funny when I heard it- as the person in question was always a very exciteable person and could never get to grips with all the various little con games and ripoffs and whatnot. He loved Thailand but would get so enraged about these types of things.

He was staying at my place for the last couple of weeks before he moved back home as his rent had already run out. The morning he was leaving his flight was very early- so he had to leave my apartment at some crazy hour, like 4am. He had two *huge* heavy suitcases along. My security guard waved over a taxi who was parked in the soi (a red flag), and Bill loaded his bags into the car one by one.

Finally he got in and the taxi driver driver asked, 'bpai nai khrup?'... 'Don Muang'.... '600 baht!'

Bill asked the guy to turn on the meter but the driver wouldn't budge down from 600 baht... Bill snapped and got super pissed off. He leaped out and started pulling his cases out of the car, all the time slagging the driver off in Thai. So the driver started calling my friend every dirty name he could think of, both in English and Thai.

Bill, a pretty big muscular guy, started running towards the driver, who took off and ran down the soi. As Bill stopped (the small guy was faster than he was), the driver quit running and then started swearing at Bill some more. Bill took off after him again and the driver ran further down. It continued a couple of times and then Bill eventually started walking back to my building, passing the empty taxi.

A short while later another taxi cruised down the soi, this one confirming he would use the meter. Bill piled in and started towards Sukhumvit. Halfway down the soi the first driver suddenly walked out, holding what looked like a machete! Bill shouted to the driver to keep going, keep going and the first driver took a swipe in the air at Bill's taxi as it went past.

Obviously this could have turned out to be something pretty serious, but the story was amusing when my friends and I heard it- as Bill always was infuriated by those types of scenarios and just his bad luck that his last impression of Thailand would be of a crazed machete-wielding taxi driver at 4am.

Course I've spoken to him since then and he'd love to come back here to live.

Cheers!

[stroll]

He faces this life 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year with absolutely no prospect of an improvement in his situation in the future.

One night he again picks up some Farang, say from a bar where the Farang has spent more money in 1 night than the chap earns in a week, or takes the Farang to his Apartment, the monthly rent for which is the Drivers income for 3 months.

Even an unintended slight can push him over the edge, and the bottom line is he has absolutely nothing to lose ...... if he attacks the (to him) arrogant Farang with a brick or whatever, at most he will spend a year or so in jail - so what? the crowded conditions there are probably not much different from the way he lives at home, and he gets free food and lodging too.

If you remember nothing else, remember this .... he has nothing to lose, you do.

Good post. Just for the record I like to point out that Thai jails are not bed&breakfast places, and Thais aren't thrilled at the prospect of free lodging any more than farangs.

[Guest fj2003]

iam sorry for you both what happen to you at that night and i have no better advice what you should do

bad things happen everywhere that is sad

but for the other who write down all their exp. i just can say that i have some 100 rides out bound to non or inbound

if a driver isn't starting the taxa i jump off 1x time

discussing about fare 1x time

also just pay out with no anger an tell him nice to pay his mother a new bhudda

start the ride with a joke and a greating

think about thai style and go the same way

stop at 7/11 to get a change if you have just 500 baht

but what are 100 if you have to pay 70 think about that you pay in your homecountry more then that just for tip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and even if you are drunken

and if he is running mad

let your face get more mad and tell him you are a poor teacher

pen khruuuh my mee moneee then he stops and starts loughting