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Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

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IamChinese

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Joined: Dec 27, 2002
Posts: 42

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Posted: Jan 09, 2003 - 05:21 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Yeah, the situation does not get better. Lots of new drivers in the cabs. Out of ten times about two know the place where I live. But I managed to get there every time by explaining them. Friends who visited me, with a small map in hand got hopelessly lost.
But ripped off? Never really. I even got the rate rounded off downward in a few occasions. And once, when I was so drunk I feel asleep in the cab. I arrived hours later and the guy did not want to get paid! (well, just the standard fee) Amazing...

Wasabichez

PopStar

Joined: Dec 05, 2002
Posts: 1225
Location: Shanghai, China
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Posted: Jan 10, 2003 - 11:31 AM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Actually I only got ripped off once. I was telling the guy instructions and even pointed to where he should turn, he is like \"ok\" but decided to go on and give me and my friends a joy ride. The other times, I guess are paranoia cuz I KNOW there are faster routes and I could swear that they pick the slower routes to add time to the meter on the way there cuz I\'ve taken 18 RMB cab rides that should have been 13 RMB. Course these are only few occurances. Smile

Which is a relief. About rounding off the rate? Well, for me that is only when I start to express dissatisfaction from my awareness.

IAMCHINESE: About your drunk incident, yeah I have heard many stories like yours. That is a plus for them. Maybe I should try that and scam a cabbie one day. hehe. Nah. Even though I\'m drunk just by the final meter amt I know what happened cuz of my \"standardized routes\" hehe.

About clueless cabbies, I figure you just gotta be able to explain using road names on the way there, not just the intersection. That is how I have been doing it if they don\'t know the way and it works well. Cool

nak318

Lurker

Joined: Jan 26, 2003
Posts: 36
Location: Shanghai
Status: Offline

Posted: Jan 30, 2003 - 11:31 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Here is my system for making sure I don\'t get ripped off, if I don\'t know exact directions or approximate fare:
1) Tell the driver where you are going. Make sure (as well as you can) that he knows where it is.
2) Ask him how much $$ to go there -- if he doesn\'t get it, say \"bu2 da4 biao3\" (hope those tones are right) -- which means \"don\'t use the meter\". Most drivers will agree to this.
3) Haggle for a lower price. I usually go for 1/3 less than what they quote, based on how honest they seem, company, stars, etc.
4) Agree to a price and get in.

With a set, pre-determined charge, the driver will take you there the fastest way possible. Of course, this method depends to some extent on your ability/willingness to haggle, and you may need to know a bit of Mandarin. But it always works for me. Soimetimes it even leads to \"discount\" prices. I took a taxi from XuJiaHui to Fudan University for 40 RMB (no meter) recently. My Shanghainese friends couldn\'t believe it -- they told me it\'s usually 60 RMB!

P.S. That anon poster going on about how \"if the People\'s Daily said it, it must be true!\" was obviously being sarcastic. And the flamer who replied is (no offense) a bit of a sucker. Learn to recognize sarcasm, people! And then ignore it, so the antagonizers will stop and go away.

Joy
Guest

Posted: Jan 31, 2003 - 06:25 AM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

During my 2-week visit there, I got ripped off about 4 times - the worst was the one from airport to Puxi. About the English training and 25% stat which I think is more like 2.5%.... as an ESL speaker and I must say English is a difficult language to learn; a short, memorization-focused course just won\'t do it... even if one\'s heart in it.
Joy

Wasabichez

PopStar

Joined: Dec 05, 2002
Posts: 1225
Location: Shanghai, China
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Posted: Feb 24, 2003 - 05:37 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Well, I thought of this string I started long ago because of a repetitive experience I had this weekend. At this point I don\'t think about why cabbies do it and just conclude that they are stupid. Its much easier that way. Razz

Anyways, 4 times this weekend cabbies decided to take me on the local routes that kept on stopping at red lights and occassionally packed. Of those 4 I told one to take the YanAn expressway and he when picked up a phone call and wasn\'t paying attention he went down and back to the local roads. :casstet: :casstet: :casstet: One driver was actually trying to drive me all the way from JingAn District to the Bund via local! That is ridiculous! So I said \"what you doing? Take the expressway.\" So in conclusion I guess you just have to tell them how to go and they won\'t jerk you around.
Cool

nanar747

Raver

Joined: Jan 29, 2003
Posts: 407
Location: stamford,ct
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Posted: Feb 24, 2003 - 05:49 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

may be i do not have as much experience as u have for taxi .........
when i first arrived in shanghai ( beijing the same) the guy i was working for gave me a map and how to go from the house to restaurant and couple other things untill i can explain them ( not ijn chinese but soon u kind of know how to go from a to b)
the reason was ..... may be i am wrong ok .......
most taxis where peoples coming from countryside where there is no jobs and no money and they come to town do taxi but most of them did not know shanghai more than me .........
so sometimes ot explain teh fact they take wrong ways ......... this is what i saw at the time and what i was told .......
so now u must have more experience than me........
hope i helped...............

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nanar

Anonymous
Guest

Posted: Feb 24, 2003 - 07:15 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Its true. Half the cabbies now are from Chongming Dao and haven\'t a clue!

Wasabichez

PopStar

Joined: Dec 05, 2002
Posts: 1225
Location: Shanghai, China
Status: Offline

Posted: Feb 26, 2003 - 10:20 AM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

A visiting friend even commented on the cab drivers being clueless!!! And he has only been in Shanghai for 2 days!

chinatek

Seeker

Joined: Mar 17, 2003
Posts: 43

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Posted: Mar 18, 2003 - 01:22 AM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

I\'d just like to agree with the guy who recommended haggling for taxi fares. I\'d only do this at night - I can\'t imagine it working during rush hour - but it\'s a surefire way to get the best route for a good price when the option exists. If it\'s a route you\'ve taken before, you should know the standard price - offer and stick to a price 5-10RMB lower than that, and you should do fine.

I wasted SO MUCH money on late-night taxi fares with the meter running my first year in China. It wasn\'t that a round-about route was taken, or the driver was ripping me off... it\'s just that I didn\'t know you could haggle before getting in.

Anonymous
Guest

Posted: Mar 18, 2003 - 05:11 AM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Quote:

Look. If the People\'s Daily says that 25 per cent of the taxi cab drivers in Shanghai speak english, then they do. The fact that out of the hundreds of cabs I have taken over the last few months or you recent survey did not find any drivers who spoke english is just a statistcal annomally. Fact is 25% of cab drivers in Shanghai speak english.

Please tell me you\'re being sarcastic right? I sometimes have trouble telling on this board.

Wasabichez

PopStar

Joined: Dec 05, 2002
Posts: 1225
Location: Shanghai, China
Status: Offline

Posted: Mar 18, 2003 - 04:43 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

A funny story...some time ago, I went out...I think it was New Years Eve. I had no clue that I was headed home so \"early\" cuz I rarely do it. I went home at 6 AM and asked to have 20% off the tab. The cabbie replies, \"Sir, the meter already starts at 10 RMB why haggle?\"[in Chinese of course] Man, I felt stupid. Razz

Wasabichez

PopStar

Joined: Dec 05, 2002
Posts: 1225
Location: Shanghai, China
Status: Offline

Posted: Apr 02, 2003 - 01:05 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

An observation, is it possible that the reason the cabbies have no clue what you say is because of that thick plastic barrier?

Anonymous
Guest

Posted: Apr 02, 2003 - 03:26 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

I finally met an English speaking taxi driver! Just this past weekend, I was out with a friend, and we were leaving Maoming Lu around 4am. My friend may have had a little too much too drink, and was feeling particularly amorous, so she was talking (dirty) to me in English, believing the driver wouldn\'t understand. I dropped her off at her apartment, and continued on to my own. As soon as we pulled away, the taxi driver turned to me and asked \"Was that b-tch your girlfriend? ...or chicken? you know chicken? how much how much? f-ck sh-t b-tch\" Stunned, I just said \"No, not chicken.\" He continued to expound on the quality of women found in Shanghai, every sentence liberally sprinkled with his three favorite words (f-ck, sh-t, and b-tch). I was able to maintain a straight face and a conversation for a few blocks, until he propositioned a group of foreign girls while stopped at a traffic light: \"Hello babies! Hello babies!\" (girls turn and smile) \"want f-ck? how much?\" (girls stop smiling) \"F-CK! SH-T! B-TCH!\"

This man single-handedly made up for all the bad taxi drivers I\'ve ever met. I was so impressed that I almost tipped him. Instead, I decided to take him up on his offer to drive me around town looking for girls to pick up. We\'re going out this weekend - mothers of Shanghai, lock up your daughters!

B.

Wasabichez

PopStar

Joined: Dec 05, 2002
Posts: 1225
Location: Shanghai, China
Status: Offline

Posted: Apr 02, 2003 - 05:13 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Wow! I hope your cabbie doesn\'t think that English is just a language of coarse explicitives. And I hope he doesn\'t think that the western culture is all about picking up chicks and getting laid. Surprised

I myself did run into an English cabbie after dropping by Maoming for drinks with a friend already there. But what the cabbie spoke all sounded preprogrammed, so I never commented on it.

Anonymous
Guest

Posted: Apr 02, 2003 - 06:27 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Actually, his Chinese was punctuated with \'cao\' and \'ta ma de\', so perhaps he\'s suffering from some multi-lingual form of Tourette\'s syndrome. English may not be just a language of coarse expletives, but expletives do have their place in any language. Had that cabbie spoken perfect, polite English, I would\'ve told a few friends and promptly forgotten him. Instead, I have a much more interesting story. The moral: A f-ck in a taxi can be a memorable experience.

As for his view of Western culture, I think he grasps the general idea. In total, we discussed* sex, drinking, women, and food - is there much more to life in any culture?
*topics arranged by priority

B.

Wasabichez

PopStar

Joined: Dec 05, 2002
Posts: 1225
Location: Shanghai, China
Status: Offline

Posted: June 23, 2003 - 12:32 PM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Wow! I just took a 5 star cabbie last week! He was driving for over 10 years. Very polite, knew the roads....no bad comments here!

Wasabichez

PopStar

Joined: Dec 05, 2002
Posts: 1225
Location: Shanghai, China
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Posted: July 04, 2003 - 09:19 AM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Is there such thing as Cabbie Academy? Shyat.....I could swear that there is a whole new set of graduates if such a thing exists. These past 2 weeks, I\'ve been getting the terrible luck of consistently hopping into 0-star cabs with cabbies who have no clue where to go. I\'ve sorta given up on bitching them out. I just let them sense my displeasure and let them consider if they should take less or not. It is a matter of USD cents anyways. Razz

Drizzle

Veejay

Joined: Apr 02, 2003
Posts: 2036

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Posted: July 04, 2003 - 11:59 AM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

For some reason all the \'learners\' seem to pile up on the road outside where I live, so I hop in because I think, welll, they\'ve gorra learn somehow. So of they go, taking me on a lovely sight seeing tour of Shang, and when I openly display my displeasure, almost every taxi driver has turned off his meter, bless, and when I finally get to to my destination, I happily hand over the amount it should be. I almost feel bad for this, but you have to be ruthless in this day and age..

Wasabichez

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Joined: Dec 05, 2002
Posts: 1225
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Posted: July 08, 2003 - 11:29 AM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Yay! I am so right! I had a conversation with a cabbie this weekend, and he said YES that they have a cabbie class session that just graduated recently. I asked it they teach main roads and landmarks and he said no. So I guess it is only how to drive a vehicle and the rules of the road. I doubt they learn how to drive it well, cuz I took a couple of cabs this weekend who made me woozy cuz they don\'t drive stick well. One guy actually didn\'t know XinTianDi!

NCD22

Reacher

Joined: Sep 18, 2003
Posts: 209
Location: Shanghai, PRC
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Posted: Sep 18, 2003 - 01:37 AM
Post subject: Taxi cab advice, hope it spares people frustration

Tell you the truth, I think that it is mainly where you are catching cabs from that determines if they are going to take you on a joy ride. When catching a cab from Nanjing or from any other locale frequently visited by 'tourists' of course they are going to think that you don't know where you are as most people in those areas don't. I had a frind get charged 600 rmb from Pudong to Puxi because he just handed them a card and they had a trick taxi meter and he didn't know any better. If it's really that dig of a problem then do what my friends who don't speak English or Chinese do, TAKE A MAP!! and pay attention to it. If they circle the block, then point it out! They sell them in most foreign language bookstores and online at Amazon.com. An indispensible tool for anyone living here in Shanghai. Also, pay attention to the meter, part of it measures time and distance. Distance racking up Kuai the fastest. If you think that a fare is over priced, then tell them, or just pay the amount that you would normally pay and then get out. Have fun and in most cases, just looking like you know what you are doing without hesitation is enough for them to leave you alone and take you directly there.

Ciao

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itv1980

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Joined: Mar 05, 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Revalidation centre
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Posted: Mar 17, 2004 - 05:37 PM

I agree with NCD22 here, take a map along and just practice the street names pronouncation and the roads nearby will get you less vulnarable to Taxi's ripoff. Mostly I bargain already before get in and have a fixed fee, especially when I know the price is 15rmb I bargain starting with 10rmb and see I know it's not too far.

Takes some practice, but good luck to all

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Edgewood
FooSlinger

Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai

Posted: Mar 18, 2004 - 12:21 AM

Well, I've been here 2 years and I still get the joyride treatment frequently. They even argue with me over which way to go. You know what? It's a good thing. This is what you do:

Take the receipt. There are some phone numbers on it. One is the 'monitoring number' Get your Chinese friend to call this number and complain about the poor service or the overcharge. Most times (if you are right) you get a reimbursement plus a penalty which comes out of the drivers pocket. It hurts them a lot more than it hurts you.

There are some times when you don't get any justice (for example you get only very slightly overcharged, you have bargained a price, or da ba zhe, and they won't keep their so-called stinking 'word' - I challenge you to find an honest Chinese in a cab!), but usually you win.

It is always worth bargaining for a fixed price - know what it is worth and stick to your guns (and have the right change on hand so they can't cheat you). If one prick says no, then slam the door and on to the next. Sometimes it takes a dozen but someone will always take it.

You should always take one of the big companies, eg Da Zhong, because they are more reliable and if they do mess with you, the penalty to the driver is much bigger. Also, if the driver is crap, or even spits/litters out the window, you don't have to pay at all, which is rather civilised considering the country we live in. One to avoid at all costs is Shen Hong 申宏 due to the careful cheating, drink driving, and occasional, hmm make that frequent, racist comments Sad

Da Zhong 大眾 on the other hand are excellent Smile

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Edgewood
FooSlinger

Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai

Posted: Mar 18, 2004 - 12:28 AM

PS to my last post: Lying Drivers... It never hurts, when they lie over a bargain, to go ballistic in the cab, particularly if you are in the front seat. Don't actually hit the arsehole, but let him think you are trying to smash your way through the perspex when he has openly lied to you... It usually helps him/her/it to remember the agreement you made. You can also try just getting out and walking away, throw half-price fare back at them if you have a conscience Smile

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okido

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Joined: Sep 14, 2003
Posts: 667
Location: A planet called Earth
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Posted: Mar 18, 2004 - 05:19 AM

Take the receipt!!!! You can file complain even afterward. Usually the taxi company will take it seriously when you have a receipt. Another benefit of taking a receipt is when you accidently leave something in the taxi, you would be able to ring the taxi company to get hold of the taxi and get your things back.

Also, take one of Qiang Sheng (Gold), Da Zhong (Blue) or Jin Jiang (White) when you have a choice. Take a few minutes to study the map so that you always stand at the right side of the road also helps.

izanami
PopStar
PopStar

Joined: Jan 27, 2004
Posts: 1037

Posted: Mar 29, 2004 - 10:03 AM

is it possible to arrange a private deal with a cabby for him to send me to work on a regular basis for a fixed rate? I don't want a personal chauffer, just need a reliable and comfortable way of getting to work.

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