After enjoying Hong Kong’s vibrant nightlife, all you want to do is go to bed. But when the bar scene starts to heat up, you might as well be in a different city, where a safe ride home is auctioned off to the highest bidder.
On a recent night out in Lan Kwai Fong, Coconuts TV decided to survey the extent of Hong Kong’s taxi problem.
“It’s nighttime, so all the taxis turn their meters off,” said one taxi driver, trying to scam us under the guise of being helpful. He, along with all but one of the taxi drivers we hailed down, wanted HKD200 just to go to Causeway Bay (usually perhaps a HKD60 cab ride).
On weekend nights, drivers who refuse to turn on the meter are the norm, rather than the exception.
“I want to go home so badly, what would you do?”, one night owl asked us as he stood in line for a taxi – one of the few places in Lan Kwai Fong where cabs actually used their meters.
He told us he usually agrees to pay a flat rate of HKD300 to go to Kowloon, but this night he decided to wait in line for a metered taxi, and even bought a beer for the long queue.
At this hour, drivers will regularly cruise around the streets with their “For Hire” signs covered, and expect customers to negotiate the price before entering the vehicle based on the destination.
To refuse hire or to overcharge is a violation of Hong Kong’s road traffic regulations on public service vehicles. In fact, they’re offences that can be punished by a fine of up to HKD10,000 and imprisonment for six months.
You might think that speaking fluent Chinese or projecting an air of confidence would offer some protection, but you may be wrong. As the night wore on, the streets erupted into a shouting match in a variety of languages. Police walked by as insults were hurled at taxi drivers in both Cantonese and English.
Even if you manage to write down the driver’s information, a complaint is not easy to make: the Transport Complaints Unit will ask if you are willing to appear in court to give evidence against the driver, and if you’re not, they will just handle the matter “internally”.
For crusaders who live in Hong Kong and are willing to spend time and energy to fight the taxi problem one driver at a time, it may be an option. But visitors to the city are more likely to leave with a sour taste in their mouths.
Chrissie Leung, an information officer for the Transport Department (TD), said, “the government has been taking measures to improve the standard of taxi services in Hong Kong through enforcement, publicity and education”.
According to the TD, they received 167 complaints about taxis refusing hire, 92 for taxis overcharging, and 36 about “inadequate service” between Jan. and Nov. 2014 – and that’s only the people who bothered to make official complaints.
Leung said the police have implemented “pinpointing measures” on a regular basis, and that they’re working on strengthening patrols at “black spots” like Lan Kwai Fong and Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui.
The TD encourages anyone who encounters a taxi driver committing an offence to report it, which you can actually do using an online form.
But we’ve got a tip for LKF partygoers that the TD doesn’t have:
To get a taxi cab, just head out of the nightlife area. After walking a hundred meters out of Lan Kwai Fong the madness disappears, and taxi drivers revert to the polite standard of behaviour that we usually take for granted.
Words/Video: Aleksander Solum
Reader Interactions