The frenzy has never been the sole province of taxi louts. It is just that when we are exposed to uninvited wind and rain we see the 'screw you' syndrome in a clearer light and go all moral. Well, slightly moral anyway. Not angry enough to want to do something about it though.

Why don't we? Hey, we are so used to ripping each other off we don't give it a second thought. We accept this is the way things are supposed to be. Ask any piranha.

Taxi drivers, like you and me, can also be lovingly obedient. They won't stop to pick up or put down where there is a yellow line. You can sit in a traffic jam for six weeks near the end of the deadly yellow thing; cabbies will lock the doors and hold you hostage until they get a document from the Attorney-General that it is absolutely legal for them to kick you out. They would run over an anti-tank mine rather than risk dropping you three centimetres inside that line.

These acts of law-abiding pedantry may look stupid. They are. But for the same reason you and I hesitate in bringing cocaine through customs. That is, we might get caught.

Demanding we sell our house and children to pay for an 'out of service' taxi is different to stopping on a yellow line because the chances of them being nabbed are about the same as a win in Macau. And any half-conscious diesel head can tell we will take whatever abuse he wants to throw our way. He can see right through us as we kick and elbow each other for the right to be extorted.

He can sense - he knows - that as human beings we are running on automatic. And he is right. Were we even half awake, had we not long ago accepted that 'business is business', it is a croc-eat-croc world and it can never be any different, then the local bandits would go the way of bell-bottom jeans.

If, one rain-swept evening, the estimated 20,000 or more desperados who are asked to pay a few hundred dollars instead of $20 to be taken home said 'no' and reported it, the practice would stop. In one night. All it takes is a letter to the police, half anhour at the station and 15 minutes of fame in court.

We have a choice. We can choose to stamp it out or we can deny any responsibility for it happening. But if it is not our problem, then whose problem is it? We have chosen what suits us; the right to say: 'If cab drivers can screw me then I also have licence to the same insensitivities.' Like it or not, that clearly is the conversation; the message we give to each other and pass on to our children.

One thing is certain. The voracious rip-offs will not change until you and I step up to bat. Taxis are only a public reflection of a way of life that says the only way to win is to nail the other guy. If I win, it is axiomatic you must lose. The idea of usboth winning is as foreign to us as life without plastic bags and insider trading.

Someone named Frank Buckman said some pretty dopey things in his time (he once praised Hitler as visionary). He also remarked: 'Suppose everybody cared enough, everybody shared enough? There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone'sgreed.' So consumed are we with grabbing more than everyone else that we have come to believe The Great Taxi Conspiracy - which has been around for at least 20 years - is all about rentable red motor cars.

Hardly. It is a symptom of a widespread social illness, a malady which makes it acceptable, admirable even, to cynically dismiss the spirit which is at the very heart of human civilisation; consideration for each other, blah, blah, blah.

Corny, maybe. But in Hong Kong the concept of 'win-win' is considered a possibility only when it is counter-balanced (we think) by some sucker who will 'lose-lose' in a big way. Then I can accumulate a great deal of money, which in Hong Kong is our primitive synonym for success. This is in turn mistaken for wisdom, making Hong Kong a town of wall-to-wall smart asses.

I buy a Rolls or two. I no longer need taxis, and take time out to hang out in the rain throwing bundles of notes at out-of-service cabbies to thank them for being a great inspiration.

Hear Percy Wyndham Lewis: 'Absence of responsibility, an automatic and stereotyped rhythm, is what men most desire for themselves. All struggle has for its end relief or repose.'