Dear Sir;
Welcome to Pattaya, or commonly known as the twilight zone where as soon as the city sign is passed all common sense goes out of the window.
Normal rules of the road don’t apply, driving standards are abysmal, where taxis would rather drive around empty than put the meter on and ask for ridiculous amounts for a short journey because they think that 3 kilometres is like traveling to the moon and back.
I recently got of the Bangkok bus and instead of waiting for the baht bus to fill flagged a yellow and blue taxi meter down with his light on. I told him my destination, Wat Chai on Pattaya Thai. 250 baht was his reply. I said put meter on. He just drove off.
A few minutes later I stopped another, told him my destination and asked him to put his meter on. His reply was this is not Bangkok, no taxi meter here in Pattaya. I said you have meter in cab and sign on roof, you must be taxi. I then took his picture and told him he would be reported. His answer was to put his Toyota into launch control and disappear.
The answer seems that they would rather refuse making money, take up parking spaces, chat all day and fleece a few customers than do the job that they are supposed to do to be a “licensed taxi”. If they used some common sense and put the meter on, they would be much busier.
Sorry to go on so much (but here are) a couple of things to save lives: Control the amount of tint you can have on front and rear windows of cars and trucks. Get all the traffic lights working on railway road. Have regular patrols up and down Sukhumvit Road and the main roads into Pattaya.
Yours in utter despair,
Tony
