thought the good general was going to let uber in to clean up the industry. i drive part time for uber and is is a great system. could be any ride share system but would have to be run from out side thailand so corruption dosent ruin it.

public transport in Pattaya is a shame. If a 80 year old women has no chance but to pay 400 bht for a two kilometer ride I consider it a criminal rip off.

Authorities however give a hoot as Mr Trink would say. Bht 2000 for every Taxi driver refusing to use his meter would be fine. Nobody needs Uber, even if the Taxi

Mafia would organize themselves  Grab Taxi or others.

Pattaya needs a reliable, fair and transparent public transport system. That's all.

6 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

Good to see, maybe the same approach could be used to catch illegal short term renters.

 

I still dont get the whole uber thing, people use the argument that normal taxi's dont use their meters, Uber taxi's dont have meters. At least with a normal Taxi, there is a level of licensing and insurance etc, an uber car there is no idea if the driver is licensed or the car insured.

 

I can see an instance in the future where someones travel insurance claim will be refused because they were traveling in an illegal taxi, not licensed or insured to carry passengers

" At least with a normal Taxi, there is a level of licensing and insurance etc....."

 

I wouldn't bank on it!  Not often that the id card photo matches the driver.

27 minutes ago, Sooo Upto Me said:

It's not the baht bus mafia, it's the taxi so called mafia. 

Owned by the same company.

Duh. 

Why the hell don' t they stop the meter taxis that illegaly operate in Pattaya?. I demand the official taxi drivers to use the meter just like in BKK. I'm going to make a big fuzz about it next time I talk to a taxi driver here.

 

Uber works for me and it gives income to Thais! It doesnt matter if the company originally is foreign , then remove McD from the streets here as well !

 

Fuxxxx them!

 

 

7 hours ago, webfact said:

All they need to do is pretend to be customers and they can snare their victims.

Bright sparks. Nothing original in that idea. What would be original would be their using it to 'entrap' scamming taxi drivers, about which there have been thousands of complaints over the years. And, yes, the army (little sign of the DLT) did use it recently. But for a slightly different type of scam.

Is Uber illegal all over Thailand? If not, how come Pattaya has outlawed them? What's to stop an Uber taxi driver demanding more than the fare stated on your phone, and threatening to bash your head in if you don't pay up?

1 hour ago, williamgeorgeallen said:

thought the good general was going to let uber in to clean up the industry. i drive part time for uber and is is a great system. could be any ride share system but would have to be run from out side thailand so corruption dosent ruin it.

Do you have to have a work permit to drive for Uber?

Okay now the army has just lost my support and I've been supporting them for a long time. Helping the mafia... Way to go, great general. 

30 minutes ago, retarius said:

Is Uber illegal all over Thailand? If not, how come Pattaya has outlawed them? What's to stop an Uber taxi driver demanding more than the fare stated on your phone, and threatening to bash your head in if you don't pay up?

Silly comment. Answer: being reported and banned from the service 

8 hours ago, KittenKong said:

 

So Somchai blames the farangs. Surprise!

If I am not mistaken a company requires permission from the government before it can begin operations. If Uber started paying taxes and got a license to operate in Thailand then there probably wouldn't be an issue

53 minutes ago, retarius said:

Do you have to have a work permit to drive for Uber?

nope i do it in my own country.  i will never work in thailand again. 10 years was too much.

COMMUNISM................ Clean cut..........

NO 'free choice' here anymore............ 

It is.... "Do as we say...... Not as WE do.............

54 minutes ago, retarius said:

Do you have to have a work permit to drive for Uber?

Being they are mostly Thais......... Wouldn't need work permits..............

Pathetic, but to be expected !

8 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

I still dont get the whole uber thing, people use the argument that normal taxi's dont use their meters, Uber taxi's dont have meters.

 

Clearly you dont use it.. 

 

The app 'is' the meter !! It tells you the distance and price before even agreeing to the ride. 

Pattaya is not going forward ..... it is even worse than 30 years ago.
We still have the same stinking taxis but now with rude drivers overcharging tourists, new to this place.
 

1 hour ago, retarius said:

Is Uber illegal all over Thailand? If not, how come Pattaya has outlawed them? What's to stop an Uber taxi driver demanding more than the fare stated on your phone, and threatening to bash your head in if you don't pay up?

You report him to uber.. He loses the uber payment.. Secondly you rate and rank drivers, a driver with a poor review gets less work. Nice feedback system.

 

Perhaps best if people who are clueless to the system, use it a little before commenting on its pluses or minuses. 

You report him to uber.. He loses the uber payment.. Secondly you rate and rank drivers, a driver with a poor review gets less work. Nice feedback system.
 
Perhaps best if people who are clueless to the system, use it a little before commenting on its pluses or minuses. 

Yep. Uber is a huge improvement over the established fake taxi meter system. No wonder they're cracking down on it!

Sad.

Surprised there's been no mention of Grab here. I've only used it a handful of times, and never in Pattaya, but it appears to be an easy way of using the regular taxis but with a system of rating drivers so the a-holes get weeded out, for example those that don't use the meter. Is this correct or do I have my wires crossed?

The end is near with Taxi drivers threatening Ubers and now the Army getting involved. I still use the Tuk-Tuks and Sonthaews for short trips but recently the drivers have become more and more hostile and greedy. In Chiang Mai the apps have been a godsend! Meter taxis here are a joke. As long as they practice racist price scams and intimidation I'm all for Uber.

9 hours ago, webfact said:

While their service is convenient and affordable it is also illegal, said Somchai, noting that Uber is a foreign company.

And that's what matters, eh...

The advantages of Uber or Grabcab is the app tells you what the trip will cost @ time of booking.

More importantly it tells the driver where you want to go.

You can also prebook your trip, so you know you have a ride waiting for you.

I for one, don't care to make small talk with my driver, 

and I certainly don't want to negotiate the trip cost.

I just want a stress free ride from point A to B.

I don't think that is too much to ask for, 

and I certainly receive that whenever I visit Penang, 

which use both of the services I noted above.

Insurance aside,

as no one really knows if the car they are riding in is insured or not when they are actually using it.

So that complaint really holds little interest to me, 

not to mention that these private ride services always provide a reasonably new vehicle and it's always very clean & tidy.

Not filled with the drivers junk,

nor smell like people have been sleeping in the car all day.

 

Last night there were no Ubers available and I used Grab and got a regular car. How come they are not cracking down on this? 

8 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

I cant see the difference, there are apps or phone numbers for getting taxi's, in any built up urban area they are out the front of your hotel/condo. You tell them where you want to go and ask how much, or they put the meter on.

As you say, in the UK you can buy private "for hire" insurance, which would indicate that normal car insurance doesn't cover carrying people for hire. I think in the future these business models like uber, airbnb etc are yet to be tested, and will fail, when it comes to commercial insurance coverage.

 

Are you saying taxi's in Thailand are fair and honest? 

The local taxi mafia criminals seem to have paid off the right people? ...

 

An alternative would be just to purchase a car and hire a low cost driver on daily wages, for those not in a rush a take off to heaven with the help of the far west thai roads!!

2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Owned by the same company.

Duh. 

Different people.

Duh

Surprised there's been no mention of Grab here. I've only used it a handful of times, and never in Pattaya, but it appears to be an easy way of using the regular taxis but with a system of rating drivers so the a-holes get weeded out, for example those that don't use the meter. Is this correct or do I have my wires crossed?

Very similar to Uber.

 

 

Different people.
Duh

No.

Last night there were no Ubers available and I used Grab and got a regular car. How come they are not cracking down on this? 

If / when they crush Uber Grab will revert to fares that don't compete with the fake taxi meters.