Reflecting on how awesome taxi apps have made Thailand and other countries

When I first visited Thailand back at the tail end of the "naughts" one of the biggest worries you had as a traveler was how you were almost certainly going to be ripped off by taxi drivers. This was such a common thing in Thailand that you had to have a strategy when getting into a cab.

You would stand and negotiate the price before closing the door of the cab. You would never sit down in the car and then talk about the price. You would ask if the meter was operating and take photos of the driver's required ID in the car and also make note of the emergency number that they are required to have posted in the car. You would memorize how to ask "are you using the meter?" in Thai even if you didn't speak Thai and you had to always be on your toes all the time just to get from one place to another. Do all of this and you would probably still get ripped off anyway every now and then.

This all changed when apps like Uber (now gone) and Grab (the largest by far) came onto the scene and I recall how the taxi drivers revolved against this new system existing and even going as far as to attack drivers who used the apps and to put up signs pretending as though taxi apps were illegal and was ripping off the cab drivers.

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When these activities failed on the part of the taxi drivers they pivoted to push for Grab and other ride apps to be banned at airports and train stations and for a while that actually worked and the government gave in and did in fact ban them. Eventually they came back because you cannot stop progress and while not many will admit it, there was a general sentiment of "screw those guys" when thinking about how taxi drivers now all of a sudden had a drop in wages, or so they would claim.

Taxi drivers had been ripping people off since forever before these apps came to the mainstay and very few people, foreign or Thai, had a great deal of sympathy towards the screwballs that had been ripping off everyone whenever they could get away with it, for ages.

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There are still a few holdouts in making these apps illegal such as in Phuket where the "taxi mafia" is very strong to the point where they control the roads. There is a story about how the taxi mafia in Phuket successfully blocked the pre-arranged transport that the US Military had set up for their soldiers that were coming ashore for R&R. The local government claimed there was nothing to do but all this really accomplished was to showcase how very strong corruption was in Phuket and this incident brought about changes to the taxi structure on even that very corrupt island.

Grab is still banned at many airports including in Chiang Mai, where I live, but they came to an agreement about the fares and how they all have to be posted in public and the drivers themselves are not allowed to approach people for rides. It all must be sold through a controlled ticketing area where all fares to anywhere in the city are posted.

You can save a few bucks by walking out to the street next to the airport but honestly, it isn't worth it. This regulation was fair, and I use it even though Grab is cheaper.

But the fact remains that the apps and the eventual acceptance of the taxi drivers has made getting around in this country a much better experience. It used to be that more often than not that a taxi driver was going to at least attempt to rip you off every single time you tried to hail one. If it was ever raining when you were looking for a cab you can basically forget about getting a fair price. This scam of knowing that you have no other choice than to pay what they were asking was everywhere and it would happen to Thai people as well.

The apps put a stop to all of that and now there still are price fluctuations depending on time of day and even weather, but the areas where there are taxi ranks are basically not used by anyone anymore. I am delighted to hear that there has been a dramatic decrease in the amount of Tuk-Tuks as well, because those guys were the worst of the worst when it came to ripping people, especially tourists off.

I do find it a bit funny that corruption and outright theft are so normal in this country that something like this taxi scam could exist and carry one for literal decades and when someone actually had a solution it was fought tooth and nail for the better part of 5 years. These days you don't really hear about anyone getting ripped off by taxi drivers because it is beyond their control. If a Grab driver rips off a customer and the customer reports them, they lose their ability to drive for Grab and therefore a vast majority of their possible customers.

I have absolutely zero sympathy for these guys if they have in fact seen a drop in wages because of the apps. You only get to screw around and steal from people for so long before the people will just turn their backs on you.

I personally won't even consider getting into a non-app taxi anymore and I feel as though this is basically the way that everyone feels these days.