Bangkok taxi driver fined top whack for having a dodgy meter filmed on Facebook

A passenger who filmed a taxi driver who he thought was overcharging him with a faulty meter got a result.

The taxi driver was fined 5,000 baht after tests were done on his car and a field test was carried out, reported Thairath.

The clip of the journey had done the rounds of Facebook under the moniker of ‘Taxi Meter Turbo”. The poster who was taking a foreign friend to Suvarnabhumi airport from the W Hotel in the Sathorn area of Bangkok noticed irregularities.

First the flagfall was 45 baht but he put that down to the driver turning on the meter before the bags were loaded. But when they had only just got on the expressway at Rama 4 and the meter said over 200 baht alarm bells started ringing. So he started filming and claimed that he caught the driver touching a button on the steering wheel that he had heard was activated in overcharging meter cases.

On arrival at the airport he reported the matter to police who said they would do nothing because he had already paid. So he went to the ground floor desk where the officials on duty found the driver was registered at the airport and contacted the land department.

Driver Pramuansak Thonburi was called in Friday evening and his cab underwent checks. The checks first showed that the meter seemed to be working normally so they went to do a field test on the actual route. When the distance of the journey was compared with the actual rate that should have been charged according to the official tables he was found to be overcharging.

He was given the top fine of 5,000 for the offence and it was put on his record along with a warning that a subsequent repetition of the violation would result in suspension of his license to operate a taxi or its removal altogether.

Thai Visa / Thairath

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