Do they speak english at the taxi complaints hotline?

I've actually been keeping a list of date/time/location/license no's of taxis that refuse to pick me up or take me where I want to go.

Abuse? What did you do? If you are nice and adorable they will tell you their romantic stories about how they change from a magazine photographer to a cityguide. Hahaha. Lol 2.

Once I lost a pack of keys, the taxi driver returned them to me at the restaurant, I didn't know I lost them....
This was at least 1/2 hour later.

I think he was pleased for the 100 Kwai tip I gave him.

Overall I'm always satisfied

They dont speak English, I think taxi drivers in Shanghai are the best

The matter of drivers not picking picking up people at a time between, about, 5 PM and 7 PM is not because of the rush hour, it is because there is no swing shift here for the drivers and one shift ends and another begins at the same time for all taxi drivers. Unless you happen to live right next door to the driver who is getting off work he will not take you anywhere. he also has to get the cab to the next driver in time for him (okay, okay, or HER) to start their shift. My wife told there was a law passed due to all the complaints that drivers were nto to do this, but like most laws here (and traffic laws in particular) they are ignored.

I have had some very nice drivers here. Very kind and honest and helpful. And on top of that, I have actually had a few whose driving skills might qualify them to wash cars in the west. The taxi drivers here are aggressive and suffer (as do most of the population here) from some serious form of solipsism. Like the people walking down the street who slam into you or cut line in front of you or hit the close button on the elevator as soon as they enter one regardless of people trying to get on or off, the taxi drivers seem to think that they are the only living being in the entire universe.

Pedestrians or other other people on vehicles cause them red faced ire and irritation. Their driving techniques consist basically of hitting the brakes constantly, followed by gunning the accelerator for ten or twenty yards, than hitting the brakes, then once seeing a really good stretch of street doing a Millennium Falcon type move that nearly gives you whiplash, until they suddenly tart riding the brakes again and coming to another abrupt stop.

Red lights and the green pedestrian "walk" signs at cross walks here have no value. Nor do bicycle lanes or sidewalks, as these can quickly become an extra lane for a taxi driver (or for any driver really as I have been in buses that turn suddenly in the e-bike lanes just to shave off a second or two of driving time getting to the intersection.

I can say I do not feel I have been cheated too many times in Kunming, no more than Beijing. Not better than BJ, but no worse. Yes, I have been ripped off but not enough to make an issue out of that. But the drivers here are reckless and horrible. Veering from lane to lane and driving way too fast, not caring about anybody in the world.

I have come to realize that people here in China (but KM in particular) cannot really even walk down a sidewalk properly, so I may be expecting too much when I think they should be able to drive a car in a straight line at a reasonable speed. I slammed into by people walking here more in one week than I did in 43 years in the US. Of course there will be the retort of: "hey hater dude, there's more people here, so like, uh, yea... they're gonna you know, bump into you more. yea... so stop hating!". I am talking about many instances where there was no reason to get bumped into other than the person who did it was a solipsistic idiot who probably thought I was a figment of his/HERS imagination.

So, you take a person who feels they own the whole sidewalk or park or school ground when they walk and place them behind the wheel of a car and, well, there ya' go.

And I have had a few drivers get ticked when I used the safety built. They tell me "bu yong, bu yong (don't use)". As it is is some insult to their manhood if I do. I got so tired of this I sit in the back seat now, just to avoid this particular issue. Somebody may say "hey, that never happened to me", but it has to me, and more than a few times over the years before I moved to the back. Not that I have much better a chance of surviving an accident back there with the way these yokels drive but maybe I'll just wind up paralyzed from the neck down than decapitated.

solipsism LOL i am laughing aloud here!

If you don't like taxi's - - why not walk - - it's even healthier !!

Bicycle is the most environmentally friendly way to travel.

Because you can cycle to your destinations, and re-cycle home. [grin]

Yea, I will bicycle all the way from my place near Haiyuan Si (海源寺) to Metro and get some ham and lug it back in my backpack. Or I can walk there. Should only take me about ten hours or so if I don't get ran over on the way there or back.

Noticed over the last year that more and more taxis have been refusing to pick up foreigners at all times. Before they used to at least make gestures that they were going to eat now it's more a big f&*k you and then picking up Chinese people further down the street. Whatever it is it's getting annoying.