Quentin Lau knows his job as a taxi driver makes him an object of derision. When he comes across online news articles on the taxi industry, like those about new ride-hailing apps entering the market or yet another altercation between a driver and a passenger, he rarely reads the comments.
“Sometimes, the comments are quite negative. People are always blaming taxi drivers,” Lau said. “To them, the passenger is always right.”
The poor image under which Hong Kong taxi drivers labour is unfair, the 32-year-old said, but he also understands where many are coming from.
Complaints about taxis have far exceeded those about any other public transport mode since 2011, the earliest year that annual reports of the Transport Advisory Committee’s complaints unit are available on its website.
In 2023, complaints against taxis made up 43 per cent of all those received when considering figures per million passenger journeys. Complaints about the MTR accounted for just 0.39 per cent.
The most common complaint against taxi drivers last year was refusing hire, followed by improper driving behaviour and failure to take the most direct route.
Hong Kong taxis also have a bad name among tourists. On travel website TripAdvisor, reviews are overwhelmingly negative. Taxi drivers are “rude,” overcharge unwitting tourists and drive vehicles that are “falling apart,” they read.
Last year, a mainland Chinese influencer’s video on video-streaming app Douyin - which showed him attempting to hail a taxi in Lan Kwai Fong - went viral. In the video, taxi drivers attempted to charge him up to HK$200 to go to a Causeway Bay hotel, a ride that would be around HK$60 by meter.
"Black taxis" have become an antithesis of "the good stories of Hong Kong," lawmaker Chan Siu-hung said in a Legislative Council meeting last year, using a term that refers generally to taxi driver malpractice.
Amid long-standing dissatisfaction with cabbies and an attempt to revive post-pandemic tourism, the government is increasing its regulation of the free-wheeling industry.
Over the past year alone, Hong Kong has rolled out stricter penalties for taxi driver offences, and a driver demerit system under a new law. It has also announced government-licensed “taxi fleets” that will give authorities a tighter grip on the industry.
This month, the government proposed mandating surveillance cameras and electronic payment systems.
Taxi drivers and industry veterans told HKFP they believed more supervision of the loosely regulated sector could deter bad behaviour.
Lau told HKFP that, while waiting in a taxi queue, he has seen drivers ahead of him wave passengers off because they did not want to drive to their destination. He said sometimes drivers refused passengers because they were unfamiliar with the place they wanted to go to, did not want to cross the harbour, or were afraid that they might get stuck in traffic.
Drivers may also be reluctant to go to a remote destination because they feared being unable to secure a return fare: "The passengers grumble to me, and I'll hear them out. I’ve been told many times, 'You are one of the good ones'," Lau said.
Left to their own devices
Hong Kong has around 46,000 taxi drivers, most of whom do not own the vehicles they drive. To own a taxi, one must purchase a taxi license, historically seen as a long-term investment. Many taxi owners loan their vehicles to taxi management companies, which rent the cars to drivers.
The drivers - who are self-employed - pay around HK$300 to HK$500 per day to use the taxi for a 12-hour day or night shift. Some taxi management companies offer brief training sessions to new drivers, teaching them how to maintain their vehicles and interact with passengers politely. Beyond that, they are largely left to their own devices.
Chan Kin-keung, a New Territories taxi driver with 40 years of experience in the industry, said companies have little reason or incentive to ensure that the drivers who rent their vehicles abide by the rules. The companies are not their employers and are not responsible for the drivers' conduct, he said.
"Most of them are only concerned about one thing, and that is collecting rent from the drivers," Chan, 64, told HKFP in Cantonese. "The only 'management' the management companies do is arrange shifts for drivers so that they can get their rent payments."
Referring to complaints that many Hong Kong taxis are old, offering bumpy rides and with leather peeling off seats, he said it was expensive for taxi owners to purchase new vehicles. The costs were especially prohibitive considering the value of taxi licenses has plummeted over the years - an urban taxi license traded for around HK$5 million in 2019, and was worth around HK$2.86 million in December.
According to government data from 2019, more than 15 per cent of Hong Kong's taxis had been on the road for 18 years or more. In comparison, taxis in Singapore have a statutory lifespan of 10 years.
The age of taxi drivers, too, has been the subject of discussion, especially when there are accidents involving taxis. According to Transport Department data from 2022, about 60 per cent of all Hong Kong taxi drivers were aged 60 or older.
Benson Hung, a lecturer at the Vocational Training Council who has researched the taxi industry, said the taxi industry was not appealing to young people as there was no career progression.
"There are no pathways for promotion, or ladder for them to climb up," Hung said. "There are no opportunities for them to earn a higher salary."
New laws
Taxi drivers' behaviour is regulated under the Road Traffic Ordinance, a wide-ranging set of laws governing everything from vehicle licences to drink-driving to speed limits. Last December, the maximum penalty for taxi-related offences was increased to HK$25,000 and a 12-month jail term, in addition to the existing consequence of disqualifying them from driving a taxi.
In September, new legislation called the Taxi-Driver-Offence Points Ordinance (TDOP) came into effect. The ordinance lists some of the same offences as the road traffic laws, with each offence accounting for a certain number of points.
For example, a taxi driver can be docked 10 points if found guilty by a court of refusing to drive to a passenger’s destination, and five points for detouring or soliciting passengers. If a driver reaches 15 points, they could be disqualified from driving a taxi for three months.
Lawmaker Doreen Kong told HKFP that even though the offences were not new, the points system was a “new tactic” and could help deter unscrupulous drivers.
“You accumulate a certain number of points until a certain level, then it will trigger the penalty," Kong said, adding that the offence could be tried under both the Road Traffic Ordinance and the Taxi-Driver-Offence Points Ordinance at the same time, resulting in a double punishment.
Hung said the legislation was significant because it was the first targeted specifically at taxi drivers.
“Most taxi drivers don’t have any understanding at all about the [Road Traffic Ordinance]. So now the TDOP states the point reduction explicitly and particularly addresses taxi drivers,” Hung told HKFP.
Lack of evidence
But some are doubtful about how the new points system ordinance will be enforced. In the past, taxi complaints did not receive sufficient follow-up because many passengers who made complaints withdrew them or there was not enough evidence for an investigation.
According to last year’s annual report from the Transport Advisory Committee’s complaints unit, there were 11,096 taxi malpractice complaints. Among them, less than a quarter made their way to law enforcement.
To Sun-tong, the deputy director of the Motor Transport Workers General Union’s taxi branch, said many complainants drop their case because they do not want to go to court to testify.
"They think it is troublesome, or they think they do not have sufficient evidence anyway to win their case," he said.
Hung said it was often difficult for customers to provide proof of their complaints, making it difficult for the authorities to investigate - and therefore giving drivers the impression they could get away with their behaviour.
“Unless a customer recorded a video showing that the driver took a longer route, it’s difficult to have evidence that there was a detour,” Hung said in Cantonese. “Same with rejecting passengers. You would likely not have taken a video of a taxi driver saying they don’t want to take you to your destination.”
As of early this month, 26 drivers have been convicted under the new Taxi-Driver-Offence Points Ordinance, although none had accumulated enough points to have their licence suspended, the Transport Department said in response to HKFP.
This month, the government proposed mandating the installation of cameras inside taxis to assist in handling investigations. The devices will have to be approved by the Transport Department to ensure they meet specifications.
Video and audio recordings will only be accessible by “authorised persons” for gathering evidence, and will be uploaded to a government cloud system for investigation by the police or the Transport Department.
To, the union leader, said surveillance cameras were something his union had been advocating for years.
“This is good for both the passenger and the driver. Everyone is safeguarded,” To, who has been driving a taxi for 40 years, told HKFP.
Cat Kot, who runs taxi management company Tang Chun Taxi, said all of her company’s taxis were fitted with surveillance cameras earlier this year. At any time, she can watch the footage live from an app on her phone.
The 38-year-old said most companies had not installed these cameras in their taxis because of cost.
“After the installation costs, you still have to pay around HK$2,000 to HK$3,000 a year to the provider for their service of storing the clips on a server and turning them over to you when you request them,” she told HKFP in Cantonese.
In a Legislative Council document, the Transport Department acknowledged the expense involved. It said that, by not requiring all taxis to install the same camera model and instead inviting companies to apply for approval of their devices, authorities could encourage market competition and possibly cut costs in future.
Uber as a threat
Still, Hong Kong’s taxi industry needs more than just laws and supervision, some say, believing that market competition in the form of legalising ride-hailing apps like Uber was key to improving the image of the sector.
Currently, Uber operates in a grey area in the city, which requires vehicles offering ride-hailing services to have a hire car permit. In July, the government said it was planning to regulate ride-hailing services in the city by potentially introducing a special accreditation system.
Chan, the taxi driver, said the biggest players in the taxi industry - those holding taxi licenses - had long opposed Uber because its popularity could drive down their value.
"But many drivers like me welcome Uber," he said, adding that he would even consider switching to driving an Uber if it were legalised.
Chan is already well familiar with Uber. He told HKFP he was an avid user of Uber Taxi, the app's product which matches passengers with taxis, and that he likes the accountability mechanism. Both drivers and passengers can give ratings, a function that he said incentivised good behaviour on both sides.
Hung, the researcher, said the popularity of Uber highlighted the deficiencies of the city’s taxis. Uber vehicles are newer, drivers are widely thought to be better-mannered, and the nature of booking a trip with a marked destination means less room for dispute between drivers and passengers.
“Uber has made that comparison clear,” Hung said.
Kong, the lawmaker, said the government should “open up the market in an orderly way,” assessing the impact that legalising Uber would have on the taxi industry and having a clear timeline.
“With market competition, the taxi sector will see that if they don’t put in the effort, they will lose their business,” the lawmaker said.
'Stigmatised'
Cabbies who spoke to HKFP said they were cautiously hopeful that the image of the city’s taxi industry would improve with time as the government’s efforts got underway. Some said they felt wronged by public criticism of the sector, especially by the comments they see on forums and social media platforms.
The negative image of the sector has inspired memes and online jokes. On an English-language meme page “chaoshongkong,” one post provides a public transport-themed pick-up line: “You make me into a HK taxi driver because I’ll moan as you ride.”
Other jabs are seen as more malignant. On forums, some people refer to taxi drivers as DC9, a derogatory term that is a Cantonese homonym for "taxi dog."
“There are some taxi drivers that really hate the term ‘DC9.’ They think that is not representative of them,” Hung said, adding that the negativity can eat at their morale. "Taxi drivers have become stigmatised."
The social media-era has reinforced the public’s negative attitude, the researcher added. Posts about taxi drivers attempting to overcharge passengers or taking detours often blow up, attracting an echo chamber of comments.
And when there is news about car accidents that involve taxis, people always seem to blame the taxi driver, Lau said.
“The comments will say, ‘It must be the driver’s fault, they must have been looking at their phone or something. But they don’t know the full picture,” he said.
Taxi driver Chan told HKFP: “Most taxi drivers are nice. Nine times out of 10, it’ll be a normal taxi driver. But when they have one encounter with a bad taxi driver, that’s all they’ll remember,” he said.
“But I guess that’s just human nature,” he said. "People always remember the bad."
