Man accused of being Uber driver after giving ride to foreign friends in Chiang Mai

[Peterw42]

24 minutes ago, scorecard said:

 

And you never give any thought to insurance, whether there's any record of the driver, can't record the fleet number on the inside of the door, because there isn't one, etc. And if an incident happened there's only a 50/50 chance to get the rego number.

 

If you take a taxi from the proper taxi rank, they have some records and you get a slip with the taxi number to keep. 

 

Who would you complain to if the private car driver tried to molest you, etc?

I'm all for proper taxis, for the reasons you mention, I was more pointing out that private cars pretending to be taxis are pretty common in Thailand, some even have the magnetic taxi sign for the roof. Middle of the night after a 10 hour flight, the guy looks half official etc, its not until you spot the baby seat and groceries in the back seat, then you realize.

[balo]

Theres probably more to the story , my guess would be he is an UBER driver but trying to make everyone believe he is not. After all private ridesharing is not ilegal . 

[CantSpell]

Foreigners MUST take taxi at airport..

 

Next:

Foreigners must not drive or own cars: must use local services.

Foreigners must not drive or own moto: must use local services.

 

All for the sake of their own safety obviously, expect tourists numbers to shoot through the roof 

[Nowisee]

The red truckers seem to be in denial that their dangerous, hot, smokey trucks and sporadic/reckless driving and unreasonable fares are all that foreigners and thais need.

 

This whole Uber and Grab thing is going to be ongoing, get uglier before it gets any sort of resolution from a legal point.
There really does not seem to be any sort of legal (dare I use the word logical) solution forthcoming.  It's going to be a "there's a spider in the house, burn the house down" mentality.

 

I get taken to and picked up from the airport several times a year by thai friends.  I suspect I am not the only one doing this.  

 

[lopburi3]

There is a logical answer but would not make either side completely happy - but would be fairer and provide the public options they should have.  Such vehicles should have public transport plates and be required to hold insurance for such - and if so be legal and allowed to operate.  Grab I believe already meets that criteria (at least here in Bangkok where they are legal taxi but just using the Grab umbrella for some fares).

 

 

 

[CantSpell]

40 minutes ago, Nowisee said:

The red truckers seem to be in denial that their dangerous, hot, smokey trucks and sporadic/reckless driving and unreasonable fares are all that foreigners and thais need.

Actually, I agree they stink and should be upgraded but 20 Baht per person is not unreasonable imo.

They have a different purpose than the taxis I think, I prefer to take a red cab to go Tapae rather than circling around for 30 minutes to find a parking spot.

 

Competition for Uber I think is mainly the airport taxis.

 

Red cab are a good thing in Chiang Mai, they just need to get some upgrade...

[dvdcm]

 

On 3/15/2017 at 9:04 PM, scorecard said:

 

And you never give any thought to insurance, whether there's any record of the driver, can't record the fleet number on the inside of the door, because there isn't one, etc. And if an incident happened there's only a 50/50 chance to get the rego number.

 

If you take a taxi from the proper taxi rank, they have some records and you get a slip with the taxi number to keep. 

 

Who would you complain to if the private car driver tried to molest you, etc?

Aside from the airport and a couple of the larger plazas, where would I find a proper taxi rank in CM? Or complain about the mischief of a songteow driver? Granted, there are ID cards in taxis, tuk tuks, and many songteows, but who gets the credit or blame if a tuk tuk driver stops and pops me into a different tuk tuk because a customer who paid for a day of exclusive private service has finished dinner early? There are taxi services that claim 24 hour service and will do so with advance booking, but which ones even answer the telephone after 11:00pm?  What is my  portion of insurance if a red bus with 8 passengers launches us across Nimman after a disagreement with a tour bus or a motorcycle that disappears?  

 

I've experienced all of the above (save for the launching across Nimman) for years without complaint simply because that's how things were with transportation in Chiang Mai. Now with Uber I know who is coming for me, pretty much when to expect the car, and have documentation of the whole experience (with the exception of the tip I almost always leave out of thanks for a clean, efficient, and drama-free ride).

 

I do have a tuk tuk driver I've called on for a couple of years and will continue to do so until he finishes school and goes into other work, as he plans to do. Disruptive technology by its nature disrupts the ordinary. At some point the samlor drivers surely were up in arms about the red buses.     

[hobz]

On 3/15/2017 at 10:23 PM, balo said:

Theres probably more to the story , my guess would be he is an UBER driver but trying to make everyone believe he is not. After all private ridesharing is not ilegal . 

Why do you guess that? 

The only way for authorities to know is to check his phone and open the uber app. OR check the phones of the passengers and open the uber app. 

 

IF he was uber driver, uber would pay the fine for him. So I guess he is not an uber driver. But really we have no way of knowing. But I lean towards that he is not.

[hobz]

On 3/16/2017 at 11:33 AM, CantSpell said:

Actually, I agree they stink and should be upgraded but 20 Baht per person is not unreasonable imo.

They have a different purpose than the taxis I think, I prefer to take a red cab to go Tapae rather than circling around for 30 minutes to find a parking spot.

 

Competition for Uber I think is mainly the airport taxis.

 

Red cab are a good thing in Chiang Mai, they just need to get some upgrade...

I get motion sick / dissy from red cabs.. The mix of not having front vision and sitting sideways and breathing in exhaust fumes does not sit well with me.. However, I do think that the fares are reasonable, when they don't try to scam you....

I'm from Stockholm and I never owned a vehicle there.. Bus + Train + Subway system was working very well except that trains always has issues a couple of weeks in the winter since they privatized it... very similar to singapore... and they have apps for trip planning etc, just enter destination and the app will give you multiple options and tell you where you have to go and what bus to take what time and where to stop and change etc. I hope chiang mai can get that some day... but I doubt it.. Thai people rather all drive their own vehicles and sit in traffic jams like morons.