Re: Suggestions for night arrival
On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 03:15:56PM +0300, Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho wrote:
> On 20050525T135436+0300, Fabian Fagerholm wrote:
> > You may find that this won't work. The taxis in Finland are all licensed
> > and they all follow a predetermined pricing scheme. The prices are set
> > by the Ministry of Transport and Communications. You can of course ask
> > for an estimate beforehand -- the GPS system in the taxi can probably
> > tell the exact distance -- but the drivers really have no way of
> > charging anything but the predetermined fees.
>
> Actually, they are allowed to charge anything they want *provided* they
> don't exceed the predetermined fee (which is calculated as you
> indicated).
>
> Of course, it may be difficult to convince a taxi driver to take less
> money than what the ministry regulation specifies :)
That depends.
A similar system exists in Belgium. It's also quite ordinary to tip a
cab driver in Belgium (don't know about elsewhere).
If you agree upon a fixed price, there are a few things a cab driver can
do:
* Switch off the official meter, claiming he's driving without a
customer (who's going to check?)
* Agree upon a fixed price. If the meter shows more than the agreed-upon
price when the cab arrives at the destination, take less, which is
legal. If the meter shows less than the agreed-upon price when the cab
arrives, book the remainder as a tip. That's also legal.
It's up to the cab driver to agree or not. If he disagrees, there's
always a next cab in line -- and considering that many cab drivers earn
less money by just sitting there and waiting for customers instead of
driving you where you want to go at the possible risk of earning less
than they would expect to, it's pretty safe to say most won't. If it
does appear to be a problem, it's most likely because the fixed price
you're trying to negotiate is too low in their opinion.
--
The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the
pavement is precisely one bananosecond
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