Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
It was just last week that I was singing the praises of Arabian Taxis and I found myself justified a few days later when I needed a lift to take me back to my car which I had left in town the night before.
I'm not a person who likes to take a taxi, in fact, I don't even like being the passenger in a car, preferring instead to be in control of where and when I'm going somewhere (control issues, maybe?).
Anyway, I digress. I called a taxi and made a mistake in the address but the clever man behind the wheel still managed to find me and took me via the most direct route (without prompting) to where I needed to be.
This was done with the minimum amount of fuss and the maximum amount of friendliness and courtesy. The driver even explained to me how the road numbering system works and where I had made the mistake in giving my address.
I got to my destination a little bit wiser, with a smile on my face and to add to my delight, when it came time to pay the fare it turned out to be nearly half what I expected it to be - that expectation having been set in my head by less honest taxi drivers that I've had to occasionally take to, or from, my house over the last few years.
Finally, Bahrain has an honest taxi firm that doesn't cheat its customers and I for one am very impressed.
Two days later I heard how more than 50 passengers from the Brilliance of the Seas cruise liner had all turned back to the vessel before even leaving the port due to a mass of unscrupulous taxi drivers who had tried to charge them outrageous fares just to take them into town.
Speedy Motors have always given a good value-for-money service over the years but they have to be booked in advance.
Until the advent of Arabian Taxis, picking up a cab in the street was very much a game of non-lethal (for the most part) Russian Roulette.
You could pretty much guarantee that you would be ripped off but once you convinced them that you were not a tourist and knew the most direct route to get to where you wanted to go, you usually managed to pay only a little over the odds.
There were exceptions, of course, like the time three new arrivals decided to share a taxi from Juffair to JJ's (a journey that takes five minutes at most) and were charged BD20 each for the journey (even if, in some way, you have to think to yourself that they might have deserved that just a little bit, as one of the very first things you should do when you handle a new currency is at least know the approximate exchange rate).
But, what happened to those cruise passengers is above and beyond anything I expected even from the most unscrupulous of taxi drivers.
I'm more than a little surprised that their attempts at cheating people have been allowed to go on pretty much unchecked up till now.
How hard would it be to implement a system at the gates of the port, like that in UK airports, where a supervisor takes down the number of each taxi as it picks up a passenger?
That way if a driver tried to charge something as ridiculous as $400 (BD150) for a 10-minute journey at least there would be a record allowing the authorities to act.
Any driver caught trying to con a passenger should be punished by having his licence suspended for a certain period of time, longer for a second offence and permanently for a third.
That would be a pretty good deterrent.
If a driver broke into a house or robbed someone on the street they would be punished in the courts with prison and a fine, so why should it be any different for someone trying to con a person out of money? Theft is theft whichever way you look at it.
The only reason these drivers are allowed to get away with this is because there appears to be no one enforcing the law.
They pretend that the meter isn't working and the unsuspecting passenger either has to accept that fact or wait for another taxi to come along who, unless they happen to be driving for Arabian Taxis, will more than likely tell the same story. Most people don't realise that taxi meters are supposed to be used.
There was one more interesting thing I learned while enjoying my very pleasant taxi ride from home into town the other day; stuck to the window of the taxi was a little sticker informing me that if the meter wasn't on my trip was free, and I quote: "IT'S THE LAW".
Now I think that's a little point worth remembering next time any of you get into a rogue taxi that tries to get away with the whole 'the meter isn't working' con.
Smile sweetly, say OK, get driven to wherever you need to go and at the end thank the driver kindly and point out politely how much you enjoyed the free ride!
