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absolutely...if you are a racist arrogant a-hole in Japan it seems your destiny is to be a TAXI driver. (but on a few rare occasions I have met a few jovial ones who have a good laugh with you) And being a taxi driver gives you the right to park anywhere, esp outside my workplace where at times they block the whole drop off area/taxi/bus stop outside the train station cars struggle to get passed them and buses honk their horns at them. moon.gif

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I'm just amazed that some of the Tokyo taxi drivers have no idea where any Tokyo locations are. And they don't make very much effort to check their map either.

 

One trick to make the bad ones nicer: let the driver see you taking one of the Complaint cards that they have. ;\)

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Ahhh, just last night I was trying to pick which taxi I would take of the approx 200 available ones outside my office. My UK visitor asked me if there was a taxi protest where they all get together and drive around the block, bringing traffic to a standstill. I explained that this was teh normal supply of taxis and the governement was, as usual, pissing around with demand, supply and price. We then proceeded to pay Y600 just to get in the cab (yes, thats right, an AUD8 flag fall!).

 

If there is one thing I HATE about this place, it is the price of a taxi when there are so many of the whinging stupid ggrgrgrgrghg.... it pisses me off!

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I'm going to go against the grian here and say that my one experience with taxi's in Japan was very positive.

 

sfg/sam and myself needed to get from our hotel in Ginza to the TCAT with two snowboard bags, a largish backpack and a cube Flow bag. We thought we would have to hunt down a station wagon. After not being able to find one we decided to try and get it all in a normal sized one. The first one we flagged down looked at us and our bags, had a chuckle and started trying to fit it all in. He did it!! Sure on of the snowboard bags was hanging out of the window, but we got to the TCAT!! He was a champion, really friendly and helpful!

 

By the sounds of things we got lucky!

\:D

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taxis in japan are herendously (sp?) expensive.

to just sit in the taxi its Y600

and i always get death stares from the driver when i try to open the automatic door myself because hes taking his own sweet time to pull the lever.

 

 

i take taxis all the time when i go out in singapore (atleast one way) and its pretty cheap.

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A couple of years back badmigraine and myself tried to get into a taxi waiting at a taxi stand in Roppongi one night.

 

We walked up to the car made the usual hello we are here politely recognise us and open the door routine, but ignorance prevailed. mad.gif We then proceeded to walk around to the front of hte car and pear in at the driver so we could be sure that he was not missing the fact that we were actually wanting to use his taxi. He still ignored us. mad.gif

 

We took another lap around the taxi, but alas this idiot would have nothing to do with us.

 

We were flabbergasted and cursing and wahtever you do when you are ignored like this. Next thing a Japanese couple walk up to the stand see the taxi, the taxi sees them, the door pops open and off they go! eek.gif

 

I have never been so pissed off in my life.

 

Fortunately for us I had taken down the cab number and company name of this prat.

 

When we got back to badmig's place I made a call to the complaint center and two days later the Compnay president and his little F-boy came out to visit me here at work and apologise.

 

They bought me some cakes and a letter to sign saying I withdraw my complaint. I took the cakes and ripped up the insulting complaint withdrawl paper and sent them on their way.

 

They asked me to forgive the man for his actions it was stupid and all that crap and then they had the gall to ask me to sign the complaint withdrawl so Mr. Taxi driver could be allegable to become a private taxi owner/driver! I can't tell you what I told them when they pleaded with me to do this mad.gif

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Mogski, you story reminds me of something that happened to me in Hong Kong many years back. The opposite discrimination but equally infuriating.

I walk up to a taxi wait at the airport wanting to get in. The driver says rudely "Not in service". Then minutes later picks up a Caucasian looking person. The reasoning behind that is obviously: "I'm not interested in making an honest buck, I'm only here to prey on unsuspecting tourists".

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good work mogski! I would have done the same.

 

 

TRIVIA:

during the bubble one had to hail a cab by holding out the number of fingers that would would multiply the fare by. To get the cab you had to bid higher than the guy standing next to you. If you were not Japanese you were often holding out two hands to get them to stop.

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Mogski: I've been ignored by taxi drivers in Roppongi also; I've heard the "excuse" is that they believe all foreigners live nearby to Roppongi = small fare. They would rather pick up Japanese who conceivably live further away = big fare. mad.gif

 

To combat this, the gaijin in our group are forced to hide while someone Japanese flags down a cab; then all of the gaijin rush into the taxi. mad.gif

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given the number of taxis clogging the streets these days its hard to believe they would ever turn down a fare. they are pretty bad, but there are a couple of things to say in their defence:

 

a. i've heard that opening the door manually wrecks the automatic door opening thingy - hence the dirty look from the driver.

 

b. at night a lot of the drivers are looking for the big fare out to the burbs and don't want to be bothered by foreigners who live around the corner. this is particularly important if they've been sitting in a cab rank for ages.

 

c. (although this is more suspect than the others) there are still a few japanese that are shy about dealing with foreginers and so they would rather forgo the fare.

 

from personal experience, most are not too bad, its only 20-30% that are rude and obnoxious, although those percentages increase dramatically late at night.

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Kambei the door thingy is not a problem. Can't break. They have a safety on them to allow for people opening the door. It just p's off the driver cause he has to reach down and reset it.

 

In my case we never touched the damn car. We stood outside the door waiting for it to be opened like complete fools.

 

I agree with your arguement that they want big fairs, but doesn't picking up several smaller fares over a short period of time porvide for nearly the same profit? Afterall the vechicle is chewing hte same amount of gas, if not less, on shorter routes, but the driver can gain more but not having some much downtime on the return?

 

Anyway, like you say it is only a small proportion of taxi drivers who are like this.

 

As for burb going Japanese, with the economy the way it is you would think they would now want foreginers as foreigner usually reign from foreign companies which means more profit, which means more use of taxis etc.

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What really shocks me is how bad the taxi drivers are with direction. They never know where to go! I had to direct our cab driver from Ebisu-eki to Roppongi!! It was like he was just doing it to mess with me.

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i had one cabbie who was pretty laid back considering how my friends and i were behaving. we had very vague directions to my friend's house. we had to stop at 7-11 as my friend started puking all over himself and the backseat. after that little break, we got continued to wander the outskirts of the city before finally asking him to return us to where we started. i guess he couldnt really complain about the mess with the 5000yen fare.

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i agree mogski, given the flag call, i would have thought heaps of short runs would be better than one long one. i flagged a taxi the other day, he saw me and turned on his hazard lights and slowed down at which point i bent down to pick up my shopping. when the driver got close and could tell i wasn't a local, he drove off leaving me standing on the side of the road. i was too amazed to be pissed off.

 

for those drivers who pretend not to see you, a good bang on the bonnet usually helps. if even they wave you away, it makes you feel a bit better.

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many short rides v's one long ride doesnt work as the driver usually only gets one ride every few hours so he needs it to be a big one.

 

Petrol in Tokyo is quite cheap, cars are cheap, unemployement is high so labour should be cheap, there is massive over capacity..... yet taxi fares are so high.

 

I do not care if a taxi driver will pick me up or not. It used to happen in Sydney more often than in Tokyo. For every cab in Tokyo that will not pick you up there are how many that will?...plenty (except at train closure and driver change over times).

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I would be very careful with banging on the hood cause many of these people will fight back hard on the wallet!

 

I understand that it is the law that taxi drivers cannot refuse a fare. Doesn't look like there are many people enforcing this though.

 

BTW, you do not want to get in a taxi in Ginza! There are only three spots you are allowed to enter a taxi and from teh time you leave to where it is to pick them up you will pass 1000's of them line upped. WHne you get there there will be thousands of people waiting too.

 

This over population of taxis will never disappear until the Japanese houses come with gardens or they gather all the old oyaji's in one building and nuke it! (Plenty of stopped nuclear power facilities out there waiting to be put back into service.)

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Taxi drivers are a mixed bag the world over if you ask me and Japan is no different. It does make me mad when I don't get picked up for being a foreigner though. I've had some great drivers here in Osaka, who're friendly and aware of where they're going. It's a bit expensive though and I usually reserve it for when I'm lugging my snowboard.

Apart from the odd jerk who won't pick you up my "worst cabbie" experiences have been in other countries. The cab drivers who don't have a clue where they are going (or pretend not to) can be found in most cities around the world without a doubt.

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I just thought of my last taxi experience, although not in Japan, but i thought I'd share it with you all anyways.

 

It was here in Sydney on the way back from our work xmas party at about 3am or so. There were 5 (one more than the legal amount in a normal sized taxi) of us who needed a taxi back to the same place and we didn't want to split cabs. So this really friendly Indian cabbie picks us up and four of us cram into the back seat and one in the passenger seat. It had been a pretty big night so we were all a bit loud and pretty messy. Anyway, we are about 10 mins from our destination and there is a random breath testing station set up. We had been doing naughty business in the back seat and then we saw the cops and started stressing, and then realised that we had one extra person and this poor cabbie was going to busted. But, luckyily enough we got waved through. Phew!!!!

 

Boy o boy it would have been interesting if they had pulled us over.

 

We gave the cabbie a nice sized tip at the end of the trip.

\:D

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New York cabbies are a world unto themselves. Rude, smelly, often non-English speaking with little or no knowledge of streets, addresses and traffic laws...

 

I was on a business trip from Tokyo to New York a few years ago. We finished a dinner and I escaped the karaoke session on the excuse of "going back to the hotel to do some work" and went outside to hail a cab.

 

Scores and scores of empty cabs drove by, but not a one stopped.

 

I started walking toward the hotel (a LONG walk), and kept trying to hail a cab. Finally, one screeched to a stop.

 

I walked to the door and stood there for a couple of seconds, waiting for it to open automatically (they don't open automatically in New York, but I was used to Tokyo cabs...). After what was literally only 2-3 seconds, the cabbie rolled down the side window and yelled "HEY F*** YOU, YOU A**HOLE!!" and roared off at high speed.

 

It took me another 30 minutes to walk back to the hotel through some very scary streets, where I was accosted by a number of odd, unstable and disturbing characters.

 

At that point I would have been glad to take my chances on a Tokyo cabbie.

 

Mogs, I totally agree with your fare calculations. If these Roppongi-lurking taxi drivers cared to do it, they could do 10 local gaijin fares for around 1500 yen each, and that would be qucker and more profitable than one longer fare I would think.

 

;\)

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Smelly?

 

Well at least the Japanese taxis aren't smelly.

 

And they do have those lovely fancy table cloth pattered covered things on them. Aren't they nice?

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Yeah, it's really hard bringing yourself to tip any NY cabbie for the 'service' - it's more a question of fear of what they'll do if you don't, or relief to be getting away from them. Of course in NY going down the subway is like a visit to a gaol for the criminally insane, so it's a toss up really.

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