Hong Kong’s taxi mafia is real and Uber has no chance against thugs who won’t tolerate competition
- Yonden Lhatoo despairs at the sorry state of the city’s taxi services and asks why no action is being taken against thugs in the business who are shutting out competition through intimidation and collusion
I became an accomplice in a crime just the other day by hopping into an Uber taxi that a friend of mine had to hail because regular cabs passing by were refusing to take us across the harbour from the Kowloon side to Hong Kong Island.
The lawbreaking Uber driver was polite and friendly, his vehicle was clean and free of stale cigarette smoke, and there was none of the usual motion sickness-inducing wild swerving and jerking stops that you would expect on a regular taxi ride with a sullen cabby at the wheel. It did cost a bit more, but the convenience made it worth the price.
How ironic that our government and police will do next to nothing about taxi drivers cherry-picking passengers and destinations, even though it’s against the law to refuse a fare, but they’re on some unholy crusade against Uber drivers who provide a superior service – officially branded as illegal – that hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers prefer.
Much of it has to do with gutlessness on the part of the authorities to take on dog-in-the-manger taxi cartels that have conniptions over any attempt to introduce competition, and the lack of political will to challenge their protectors in a legislature compromised by vested interests.
And speaking of cartels, we’re already familiar with the thug-like behaviour of drivers and licence holders who take to the streets with unhinged belligerence every time anyone proposes anything to reform the industry, but now we have a taste of how far the taxi mafia can go to protect its interests.
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We were told that Lau had been intimidated by threats from the taxi mafia as well as warnings from the insurance sector that his little company would not get any coverage for its fleet.
“He has been receiving serious threats to his personal safety and that of his family,” a source said. “Insurance companies also called him to say that they can’t insure his firm’s taxis if he partners with Uber. That’s even scarier.”
You know what’s even scarier? The fact that there’s hardly any sense of outrage in this city over what just happened.
Just think about it – threats of physical violence against the man and his family over attempting to provide a better taxi service, insurance companies colluding with the taxi mafia to boycott a new venture for fear of being shut out by the existing monopoly, and we all just shrug and move on?
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What happened to that little thing we have here called the rule of law? No police inquiries? Not even an investigation by the Competition Commission?
I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. A taxi industry that is rotten to the core and incapable of providing anything beyond a Neanderthal service is not only entitled to carry on with impunity, but also allowed to resort to any means to kill competition.
If approved by our feckless transport authorities, this would be substantially higher than the previous increase of 9.8 per cent in 2017. How much have passengers’ salaries increased correspondingly?
I’m tired of contrasting Hong Kong’s failures with Singapore’s successes, just as most people in this city are, I’m sure, but just look at how far ahead of us they are with ride-hailing services in that little island city state. What’s our excuse?
Yonden Lhatoo is the chief news editor at the Post
