ON Sunday morning, I visited New Town Plaza, Sha Tin, with my three-year-old son. When we went to our minibus to return home around 11.30, we found that all minibus services had been suspended.
We then proceeded to the taxi queue at New Town where there were around 70 people ahead of us in the queue.
It seemed orderly for about 10 minutes; taxis would come in, drop off their passengers and pick up new ones in the normal manner. However, things rapidly deteriorated as taxis started coming in and covering their ''For Hire'' signs and rolling down theirwindows to bargain their services (to the highest bidder, I assume).
Needless to say, the queue rapidly fell apart. I observed the ''bargaining'' of about three or four taxis in a row before leaving in disgust with my son.
We walked home; arriving about 45 minutes later, wet but safe.
Some taxi drivers seem to follow a different code of ethics when customers are in real need of taxis.
