Thai cabbies who put up anti-Japanese sign warned they may lose licences

[claffey]

Sounds great but just more lip service. Go ahead just for s#!ts and giggles try giving 1584 a call and see how well you do in English or any language other than Thai. If they were serious about making that waste of time hotline effective they would at least offer service in English.

If you speak Thai or have a Thai person make the complaint for you, I have little doubt that they even follow up on these things or penalize (no jokes please) the drivers. Seems like the only way to get action is to take it to social media and hope it goes viral.

And I wonder how many languages you could make a complaint in in Good old England??? I assume that the ten's of thousands of Japanese and Chinese tourists in England are offered a complaints service on the telephone with fluent Chinese and Japanese speaking Englishmen....

[wowfactor10]

Well yes The Thai taxis are right these rude and bad mannered Japanese people taking taxis here in Thailand it must come to an complete end ?

[Loles]

So this very easy, they will remove their idiot childish text from the car BUT just simple won't take Japo tourists ...

[cgphuket]

And the government ll crack down on the bars and clubs that have "japanese only" signs on their doors?

[Jonmarleesco]

Go the whole hog, LTD. Take action against every driver who refuses a passenger without good reason, or tries to bargain over the meter. If nothing else, it'll reduce congestion.

[siam2007]

Good move Mr Sukree Charupoom.

sadly, as soon as Thailand will have an elected government again, everything will be back to normal and scams that seemed to be forgotten or eliminated will pop-up again everywhere.....

[apalink_thailand]

If we are to report any driver refusing passengers to the 1584 number, that's going to be a REALLY busy line ... hope they have plenty of operators.

Dialled it just now. Person who answered could only speak Thai, so for tourists, its not much use.

[PepperMe]

Simple to address...

Remove the drivers license..... If driver is caught driving a taxi without a license, remover the taxi number plate from the vehicle and ban it from being a taxi, if a taxi is caught operating as an illegal taxi, take the car and crush it.

To get something to work, you need to put the pressure on the owner and operators of the cars, and they will enforce anything regarding their drivers.

Edited January 22, 2015 by PepperMe

[siam2007]

Simple to address...

Remove the drivers license..... If driver is caught driving a taxi without a license, remover the taxi number plate from the vehicle and ban it from being a taxi, if a taxi is caught operating as an illegal taxi, take the car and crush it.

To get something to work, you need to put the pressure on the owner and operators of the cars, and they will enforce anything regarding their drivers.

yes, simple to address.

Indeed a lot of problems this country has would be quite simple to address.

The problem is, nobody makes a real effort, a LASTING effort, and nobody has a deep interest to do so.....

as I have wirtten in another post, this is a HYDRA that will continue to grow - cut One arm, Two new arms will grow out of it.

And sadly, the young generation of this country does not give much hope this will end anytime soon

[Varangkul]

Simple to address...

Remove the drivers license..... If driver is caught driving a taxi without a license, remover the taxi number plate from the vehicle and ban it from being a taxi, if a taxi is caught operating as an illegal taxi, take the car and crush it.

To get something to work, you need to put the pressure on the owner and operators of the cars, and they will enforce anything regarding their drivers.

Ha! Ha! Where you live?

[Chicog]

Never had a problem with Taxi drivers in BKK. Don't know what all the fuss is about!

Me neither - apart from a few not wanting to actually go to where I want to go, the one behind will and the fares are laughably low - people getting upset about the level of fares in Thailand are clearly sailing very close to the wind finance wise!

I don't see anyone getting upset at the legitimate fares.

It's the rip offs.

[monkey dog]

Good move Mr Sukree Charupoom.

Yes and the proof of the pudding is in the eating or in this case follow up action.

The whole taxi industry needs a complete shakeup but while officials talk the talk they don't walk the walk and PLEASE not another promise of a short lived, if not non-existent, ' crackdown '.

as far as i can see it is the customers that need to be doing the walk the walk.

(not to mention the bus the bus, and the sky train the skytrain, and the mrt the mrt and the ferry the ferry)

Edited January 22, 2015 by monkey dog

[realenglish1]

Everyone calls them Taxi Mafia They are not they are just cheap thugs

[Stargeezr]

Good work! I hope the government and police go after the corrupt taxis, and the Thai mafia

as well! It would be a better Thailand if some of the corruption disappears.

[smotherb]

They could still refuse to take Japanese customers, even though they don't have the sign.

I don't know the new system at the airport. Are they forced to take the customers to wherever they want to go?

Yeah, but what are taxi drivers going to do, ask customers for passport id? Or will they simply refuse any Northern Asian not a Thai?

[phrodan]

Never had a problem with Taxi drivers in BKK. Don't know what all the fuss is about!

That's because you've never been to Bangkok.

[nuananddon]

Wife and I live in northern Thailand and we spent 5 days in Bangkok over New Years and never had a bad taxi driver the entire time we there. Maybe lucky I don't know. Also many of the guys were very friendly and talkative, enjoyed the ride with them.

[cpofc]

I take cabs almost every day of my life here. Maybe I am just lucky but I can only speak highly of the very large majority of cabs and the cabbies. Keeping in mind that the fare hasn't gone up in 20 years! A very good Thai friend where I live had to give the job away recently and return to an office, admin job. He just couldn't make a decent enough living and he is a very good driver and a terrific bloke. He battled for years at it too.

Let's see. Airport to Saphan Kwai. Off the top of my head, including Toll Way. Traffic. You really wouldn't get a helluva lot of change out of 700. Certainly not worth all this froth and bubble anyway.

To be honest I reckon the Jap is being a bit kinneow. If could walk out of the airport, get a good clean cab, good aircon, good music on the radio, friendly driver, a pleasant no hassle trip. without taking the 'scenic route', from the airport all the way to Saphan Kwai for 700 (Toll Included), I reckon I'd gladly take it. And I may even add to it, if he was a good bloke and stopped at the 7/11 for me on the way!

Ippun Kee Nok!

I support the cabbies!

[falangjim]

What a bunch of whinny cry babies. One Japanese person gives valid criticism and they react like children. Not more than half an hour ago I was waiting at a crosswalk. Taxi driver pulls up and stops thinking I'm a fare, blocking my way. "It's a crosswalk, you <deleted>!" They are dumber than mud.

[naboo]

I take cabs almost every day of my life here. Maybe I am just lucky but I can only speak highly of the very large majority of cabs and the cabbies. Keeping in mind that the fare hasn't gone up in 20 years!

It went up last month.