Life is one rule after another for taxi drivers

If rules are irksome to those compelled to obey them, they are more so still to those compelled to enforce them. Take taxi drivers, for instance.

In January, Tokyo cabs went nonsmoking. In June it became mandatory to fasten rear-seat seatbelts. How do drivers handle customers who regard the fare they’re paying as a license to do as they please? Or who are drunk enough to be truculent?

Very gingerly, says Weekly Playboy (Aug 4). “Where I operate, in Asakusa and Kitasenju,” the magazine hears from a 58-year-old driver, “there are a lot of people around who insist on having things their own way. Ask them not to smoke and they’ll light up on purpose. Well, I don’t want trouble, so I tell them once and then let it go. After I’ve dropped them off, I head for the nearest park and wash out the ash tray. Then I run the air conditioner for half an hour. Otherwise the next customer will start grumbling, ‘Somebody’s been smoking in here, it stinks.’ Some actually call the association to complain. Damned nuisance.”

The “association” in question is either the Tokyo Taxi Association or the Tokyo Independent Taxi Association, the capital’s two major umbrella groups that implemented the smoking ban in January. Their move at a stroke made 95% of Tokyo’s 52,000 cabs—and about half Japan’s 270,000—non-smoking.

This is the latest fruit of the 2003 national Health Promotion Law, which seeks among other things to protect innocent lungs from the hazards of second-hand smoke. Like anything else, it has effects beyond its intended consequences.

“I’ve lost a lot of my long-distance clients,” a 65-year-old independent driver tells Weekly Playboy. “If they have to sit there for over an hour without smoking, they’ll find another way to get where they’re going.”

Bucking the trend for that very reason is the independent Anzen taxi group. “A taxi is a private service,” explains a 55-year-old Anzen driver. “There are no fellow passengers to annoy. If they want to smoke, they can smoke. If they want to eat, they can eat. That’s why they’re willing to pay the high fares. A no smoking regulation is not service.”

The new seatbelt law places additional strain on drivers. “Some passengers cooperate, some don’t,” shrugs one 58-year-old driver. The drunks, predictably, are especially obnoxious. “I’m a paying customer, don’t bug me,” is a typical inebriated response to a driver’s request to buckle up.

Or this: “If they stop us it’s your problem, not mine.” Which, ironically, is true; the driver is legally responsible for what goes on in his or her cab. Until October, only warnings will be issued; after that, if the violation occurs on an expressway, actual punishment.

What is clear, Weekly Playboy sums up, is that the era of taxi deregulation is over. Next year the Transport Ministry looks set to introduce legislation limiting the number of taxis. The current over-abundance of them is obvious to most observers, and the incomes of individual drivers have declined in proportion—from a national average of 3.34 million yen a year in 2001 to 3.02 million yen in 2005.

A brake on the current unfettered, hence cutthroat, competition sounds like good news, but the drivers the magazine speaks to seem curiously unimpressed.

“What’s the use at this point?” grumbles one 48-year-old. “The number of taxis out there is already ridiculous—and how much has that cost me? Until three years ago, I was living in a 90,000 yen -a-month apartment; now I live in 40,000 yen-a-month dive. Doesn’t even have a bath. Lucky there’s a bath at our dispatch office. There’s at least that consolation.”

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Latest 15 of 28 Total Comments Show All

presto345 at 06:22 PM JST - 1st August

Next year the Transport Ministry looks set to introduce legislation limiting the number of taxis

About time too with taxis blocking the flow of traffic everywhere in the cities. Waiting around corners, near zebra crossings, you name it. The police patrols once in a while, the taxis move off to be back in minutes. One rule after another? Come on, the average taxi driver ignores so many rules all the time, obeying a few of them should be easy. Life, as in the headline, is more about breaking as many rules as possible.
delitachan at 08:51 PM JST - 1st August

That’s why they’re willing to pay the high fares. A no smoking regulation is not service.”

Smoking is a privalege, not a right. What if the cab driver himself doesn't smoke? Guess what, he gets to breathe all that toxic crap because his client can't be bothered to follow the rules.

If Tokyo said no smoking in cabs it means NO SMOKING. No ands, ifs or buts, no exceptions. Cab drivers should kick em out of the cab the second they light up and refuse service. If it's ok for them to refuse service to people in wheelchairs, then they certainly can with smokers.
DenshaDeGO at 09:21 PM JST - 1st August

In my last job I took taxis on a daily basis and it wasn't always pleasant. I'm sorry but I don't have too much sympathy for them.
Sarge at 10:45 PM JST - 1st August

"( taxi drivers ) ignore rules and lights sometimes"

Sometimes? More like most of the time.

And I just love how people step out into the middle of the street to flag down a taxi and, of course, the taxi drivers stop in the middle of the street to pick them up instead of running them over like they should.
zurcronium at 11:06 PM JST - 1st August

smoking in a cab is like pissing in the seat. The next passenger will just have to suffer.

Love MK taxi. I never use the cockroache cabbies anymore. Their cabs stink. Rarely, MK cabs will smell bad due to the previous passenger smoking. I simply report the driver for letting that happen.
usaexpat at 11:55 PM JST - 1st August

It's madatory to buckle the seatbelts in the rear seat, is this a national ordinance or just Tokyo? I don't think I've ever even seen seatbelts in a Nagasaki cab and I surely have never had a driver tell me to buckle up.
usaexpat at 11:55 PM JST - 1st August

Zurc reporting the driver must make you a popular guy.
DeepAir65 at 08:17 AM JST - 2nd August

It's madatory to buckle the seatbelts in the rear seat, is this a national ordinance or just Tokyo?

National and not just for taxis - for all cars. At the moment they are just giving out warnings (except on the highways) but from October it will be points on the license for the driver.
zurcronium at 10:00 AM JST - 2nd August

usaexpat,

yes, with the people who dont smoke and ride cabs. Which are the majority by far of the passengers.
GW at 12:33 PM JST - 2nd August

here is how you fix the main problem with taxis, make the employers pay them a salary then the companies wudnt flood the market with cabs not giving a crap if drivers can make a living, this wud end a lot of the decline in quality of service
lipscombe at 07:22 PM JST - 2nd August

try telling any salaryman what to do after his thimble of suntory and see how far you get
angelheart at 06:10 PM JST - 4th August

Maybe I should report their ass for not stopping because I'm a foreigner.
hairforest at 07:50 PM JST - 4th August

Whatever your gripes are, they miss the point. This is just another example of government interference in the free market screwing things up for everybody.

The market should decide how many taxis there are and what the rates are, including service, etc., etc.,

If the market were allowed to operate freely, the number of taxis would go down, prices would also probably decrease as competition would be promoted; and, if non-smoking taxis were profitable, then a company would provide them.

Just look at Starbucks and/or Doutor Coffee as a good examples of what I'm talking about; one offers smoking, the other is no smoking... All this free market glory without an iota of government interference.

As it stands now, more and more government regulation has made the current messed up system as it is.

When people ask, "Why doesn't the government do something about (it)?" I just chuckle... Figure it out people: The government HAS been doing something that's why it's a mess.
JoiceRojo at 11:06 PM JST - 4th August

I'm curious about fastening the rear seat belt regulation. If a policeman stops the cab and surprises the passenger in the rear seat unbuckled, the fine goes to the company or the driver?. it would be better to have some of these led-lighted ad at the rear saying "no smoking - fasten your seat belt" just like airplanes. Then if they are caught, the passenger would receive the fine don't you think?

I'm a smoker, but rarely I can stand the smell of cigarretes in small closed spaces like bathrooms or cars, if I ever smoked in a car was with the rear window opened. But, when I travel I have to endure 2-3 hours without smoking because it is rude to other people who don't smoke.

What I absolutely agree is that the driver shouldn't smoke in any case, even if driving a taxi, bus, public transportantion or just a private citizen, In my country it is prohibited, due that when you smoke and drive you get distracted increasing the chances of accidents.
helloklitty at 03:40 AM JST - 11th August

Shunkodai: Well the way I look at it is, this is meant to be a free country.

That's the refrain from people who use cell phones at movie theaters in the U.S. "It's a free country."

Shunkodai: If you want to smoke then smoke. I don't have too. Non-smokers should get off your soap boxes.

No, they have taken smoking for too long. They should build higher soap boxes.

You say you don't have to (smoke). If you've smoked secondhand smoke, you've smoked. It is even worse than firsthand smoke. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide. Just think of the harm smokers are doing to the poor driver, not to mention the next passenger. This might explain some of the erratic driving behaviors by taxi drivers.