Another Uber driver has been caught, but at least this time it wasn’t rogue taxi drivers pulling him over.
Instead, cabbies called police to report they saw a suspect driver of the ride-hailing service picking up a foreign customer on Second Road June 14.
Traffic police staked out the Dolphin Roundabout and when the Honda Accord rolled through, they stopped it.
Officers explained to driver Korntida Hembandit, 39, and his passenger that the Uber X service is illegal in Thailand and they fined the driver 2,000 baht.
The passenger was ordered out of the car and put in a metered cab, which took him to his destination, hopefully without overcharging as usual.
Cabbies have been at war with the smartphone-enabled taxi service since it arrived in Pattaya earlier this year. In several cases, vigilante drivers have stopped cars they suspected of being Uber vehicles, sometimes with disastrous results.
Providing the first real competition to cabbies who usually refuse to use their meters, Uber has been targeted by the government, which is trying to protect the established taxi industry from competition.
