I received a forwarded email about an incident here in Taipei involving a foreign woman, a Taiwanese woman, and a taxi driver.
The woman it happened to has given me permisison to share this online:
[quote]Hi there,
I think some of you might have already heard about what happened, but I just wanted to share it with everyone so that you can be safer. On Monday March 6th at 10:00 pm, a friend and I were returning home by taxi. My friend is a local Taiwanese and she gave the driver directions to our building. We asked the driver several times to turn down the street that we needed to turn on, but he kept driving straight and began screaming at us. She asked him to turn back the way that we needed to go and he became irate. As we came to the next intersection we asked him to please turn left, but he got in the right hand turn only lane. The light turned red and when we were stopped at the intersection he turned around leaned between the seats and was screaming at us. He was screaming “wai guo ren” (which means foreigner) and curse words.
At that point we were really scared and we thought we were in danger so we hurried out of the cab. We ran across the street, dropped the cab fare on the ground and ran away. The driver got out of the cab going towards the money, so we thought we were going to be ok, but the cab driver got back in his car followed us down the street got out of his cab and begun hitting us in the head. He gave my friend a swollen cheek and broke my nose.
We called the police and they took us all to the station. We told them that we wanted to press charges, but they suggested that we just accept the driver’s apology and leave it at that. The police said that this is a very common crime in Taipei and that they thought is was too minor a crime to report. I am still proceeding with the charges, but the taxi driver was released the next day. And they said that it would take at least six months before it would make it to the courts. So the driver is still out there.
The taxi number is 372-DE. Please let your friends know to stay away from this taxi and to be very conscious of their safety while taking taxis here. [/quote]
Considering the number of bad experiences I have had with taxi drivers I applaud your friend for moving forward despite the bullshit reply given by the police.
If your friend needs some $ help with legal bills let us know I would be more than willing to kick in a few bucks.
Since we have his number, it would seem a shame if some big 'mosans like Monster and Miltownkid didn’t request his services and show him why he has every right to dread foreigners. Monster, stop! I’m joking!
Hope the pair hurdle the Taiwan cops’ natural aversion to paper and nail that bastard!
[quote=“braxtonhicks”]I received a forwarded email about an incident here in Taipei involving a foreign woman, a Taiwanese woman, and a taxi driver.
The woman it happened to has given me permisison to share this online:
[quote]Hi there,
I think some of you might have already heard about what happened, but I just wanted to share it with everyone so that you can be safer. On Monday March 6th at 10:00 pm, a friend and I were returning home by taxi. My friend is a local Taiwanese and she gave the driver directions to our building. We asked the driver several times to turn down the street that we needed to turn on, but he kept driving straight and began screaming at us. She asked him to turn back the way that we needed to go and he became irate. As we came to the next intersection we asked him to please turn left, but he got in the right hand turn only lane. The light turned red and when we were stopped at the intersection he turned around leaned between the seats and was screaming at us. He was screaming “wai guo ren” (which means foreigner) and curse words.
At that point we were really scared and we thought we were in danger so we hurried out of the cab. We ran across the street, dropped the cab fare on the ground and ran away. The driver got out of the cab going towards the money, so we thought we were going to be ok, but the cab driver got back in his car followed us down the street got out of his cab and begun hitting us in the head. He gave my friend a swollen cheek and broke my nose.
We called the police and they took us all to the station. We told them that we wanted to press charges, but they suggested that we just accept the driver’s apology and leave it at that. The police said that this is a very common crime in Taipei and that they thought is was too minor a crime to report. I am still proceeding with the charges, but the taxi driver was released the next day. And they said that it would take at least six months before it would make it to the courts. So the driver is still out there.
The taxi number is 372-DE. Please let your friends know to stay away from this taxi and to be very conscious of their safety while taking taxis here. [/quote][/quote]
The poh-lice in this country is absolutely f***ing incredibly useless!
Could somebody please forward this to the Chief of Poh-lice… or whatever he is called?
That’s terrible. I hope to hear what happens with this and please let us know if there is someone we can write to or call to make sure this gets resolved properly.
I wrote this on the ParentPages site but will say it here again: she should go to the hospital and get the injuries offically documented. Your personal photos are next to meaningless in court. This is what Igorveni taught us all when some crazed father grabbed his son so hard that he bruised the boy.
Get the injuries documented. And the woman really should make a HUGE stink over this. Random violence against people on the street is NOT a big enough problem for the police to take notice? What is? Death?
I wish I could say “What an outrageous story. How can you believe this?” But I can’t Cuz local taxis here are death. Just last night I had one following me and honking and pretty much begging me to get into his car for 30 minutes. I refuse to take taxis because if I speak to them in Chinese about 1/3rd will start speaking Taiwanese.
I rarely have one listen to my directions and at least 1/2 of them cheat me.
Never had one get out of his car and beat me, but I am not even a small bit shocked.
City Hall, Apple Daily, Presidential Office. Don’t forget the Premier promised just yesterday that he would step down in six months if social order and crime is not improved by then. There couldn’t be a better time to make a fuss than right now. Please let us know how things go.
IN Taichung a few years back, a taxi driver did a U-turn, drove down the wrong side of the street to the next red light, parked is car diagonally in front of the stopped traffic,took a 5 foot long iron bar out of the car and threatened a woman and her young child on a scooter.
Why? Because, one red light back the woman beeped her horn at the guy when he damn near ran her over.
I did the same horn beep thing about a year ago, and the taxi driver turned to follow me, then sped up and swerved to try to hit me and/or run me off the road. His taxi did actually hit my arm, but I had elbow armor (hidden in the jacket), plus I saw what he was doing in my rear view mirror and reacted appropriately, braking and swerving without losing control. He sped on, then did a U-turn as if considering coming back to do it again. I called the cops and reported it, including his license number. They did diddly shit, of course, since I didn’t have any evidence, nor were there injuries or damage. Oh, I SO wish the asshole had gotten out of his car and come at me on foot…
Do you recall that huge fight several years ago between taxi drivers, constructin workers and cops? It ended up spilling over into three hospitals. A classic.
On the other foot, so to speak, my favourite taxi story was in a Chinese paper years ago. Again in Taichung.
A taxi was stopped at a set of lights when a black merc pulled up behind. Wanting to turn right on the red light, the driver of the merc honked the horn, but the taxi driver didn’t budge. Merc driver honks again. Still no movement. Next thing a thug steps out of the merc with a pistol puts a round through the back window and through the seat into the arse of the taxi driver, and then shoots all four tyres on the taxi. He then strolls up to confront the driver screaming, "first you could move but you didn’t, now you really want to move but you can’t. There was a weird footnote about how the police had yet to locate a foreign passenger who’d fled the taxi when the first shot was fired.
