Finally, the end is in sight for the island’s assorted taxi mafias. And residents and visitors alike can look forward to the dawning of a long-overdue era of metered taxis – and professional and fair services from the island’s drivers and transport companies.
Moreover, many of the more honourable taxi drivers who were dragooned into going along with the taxi mafia’s sharp businesses practices and general thuggery, can now breath sighs of relief.
No longer will predator drivers at the airport be able to take advantage of exhausted tourists who have just disembarked from long-haul flights, and are duly seen as easy prey.
And most of Phuket society will be mightily relived to see the end of those taxi “fiefdoms”, though not the nefarious cowboys who have been flouting common decency for so many years now.
Until this point we have been in danger of killing – or at least, seriously wounding – the golden goose. How so? First impressions count enormously. And if the first impression a visitor gets of the island is getting ripped off and/or finding him or herself in a dispute with a taxi-driver – and so many luckless tourists have – the image of Phuket as a tropical tourist paradise suffers. And with tourism being the main driver of the island’s economy, addressing the taxi problem with vigour and finality is an imperative.
We also welcome the new look of the taxi vehicles themselves. With a uniformity of appearance, public trust will begin to be restored; though understandably, this will take time, given how entrenched the problem has become.
The NPCO has truly made its mark with numerous crackdowns in recent weeks and months. However the targets in the NCPO’s cross-hairs has usually been deserving of a direct hit – few more so than Phuket’s opportunistic taxi mafias and their misguided minions.
What is often overlooked in this discourse is that many of the island’s taxi drivers are fine, honest souls unconnected to the racket, and thankfully they too will be beneficiaries of the drive against the unscrupulous drivers.
The reputation of the island will also benefit. High season therefore may well see a resurgence of Phuket’s fortunes, and a rise in business confidence island-wide.