Cab drivers refuse customers headed nearby
- Source: Global Times
- [09:16 July 26 2010]
- Comments
A passenger gets out of an Expo taxi in Shanghai. Photo: IC
By Ni Dandan
Even with traffic police bending the rules to help visitors get home quicker after dark, visitors headed to nearby destinations are finding it tougher to hail a cab home from the Expo Park as taxi drivers refuse to take those going just a hop, skip and a jump away.
In an effort to ease crowds pouring out of the park after 10 pm, traffic police are allowing taxi drivers to pick customers up outside the designated taxi area where cab drivers are supervised by traffic officers, on the north end of Shangnan Road by Gate No.6 in Pudong New Area.
Although cab drivers are by law prohibited from turning customers down based on their destination of choice, several visitors said this was the case in their experience.
"The taxi drivers are really picky about their customers," Shen Liting, who visited the park last week, who was headed Changli Road, only several blocks away, told the Global Times Sunday. "A cab driver turned me down after I saw him reject four others in front of me."
The Shanghai native believes she was refused because the taxi driver from Shanghai Jinjiang Taxi Company was seeking a customer going to a farther destination.
Staffers with the complaint offices of Qiangsheng and Dazhong cab companies denied receiving such complaints from customers when reached by the Global Times Sunday, but a staffer from the public complaint office of Jinjiang admitted that the company frequently gets them.
"Every week, we get at least a dozen of these complaints," said the man, who preferred not to be identified. "It's a problem that the company has been taking seriously."
The man said that the taxi company follows the rules implemented by local traffic authorities, who last month said that unlawful cab drivers caught during the Expo period would be slapped with a 200-yuan ($30) fine and a 15-day suspension. If caught a second time, cab drivers face losing their license and being banned from driving a taxi for five years.
According to the deputy director of the No.3 Traffic Police Brigade in Pudong, who asked not to be named, the department has no authority in the matter. He said that the onus is on taxi companies to make sure their drivers comply with the rules.
Yang Anqi, who came from Hangzhou to visit the park over the weekend, told the Global Times Sunday that having a citywide number to call and make such complaints to would be more useful.
"If there is one number we can dial would be better," she said. "It would improve enforcement as well as fairness and transparency in dealing with the matter."
