Why do South Korean Taxis Refuse Customer's Requests?

[MrMan]

My information is dated, from the 1990's, but there were some strange things about South Korean taxi cabs. This was usually the case in Seoul moreso that in other locations, but lets say you are on a street where traffic is headed west, and you hail a cab. He looks at you through an open window. You say where you are going and you happen to be going east. Then, he lifts up his hand and shakes it back and forth to mean 'no' and drives off.

Seoul taxis usually would not go the opposite direction. All they have to do is make a couple of turns to go the right direction. In order to get on the other side of the street, you have to go down those stairs underground and cross the street. But if you have been walking and climbing steps, you might not feel like going through another four flights of stairs to get across the street again.

Is/was there some law against taxi cabs making what should be legal turns and red lights to change directions? They are getting paid for the trip. Maybe I get it if the cabby is getting off works and he lives to the west, but it does not make sense that every taxi driver in the city is getting off of work all at once.

Another weird thing I experienced with a cab, only in Seoul, is me and an expat buddy were in the cab, happy to be away from the crowds. South Koreans will crowd into each other and bump into each other if it gets crowded, with little regard for personal space. I remember lugging a trunk through those underground tunnel mall areas on a cart. I finally got to a place that wasn't busy, and someone passed me, but got really close to me to do it. I used to take a long umbrella with me so I could point the pointy end at oncoming foot traffic so they would not get so close to me, and would give me some personal space.

So this cab is driving my friend and I, and then he stops and talks to someone hailing a cab. My friend objected that he did not want the driver taking anyone else. He explained to me that some of them try to get another fair while a passenger is already in the car. My friend did not want to be crowded three to the backseat.

I guess it kind of helps the social good, other than the issue of using a taxi to get away from crowded transportation, to have taxis do double fairs, but we had rented the cab, and if we wanted to sublet, we should get the extra money. The cab driver complained when he wasn't compensated for the fair we told him to refuse when we got to the destination. This was my only time experiencing the double fair thing. I did not witness it in the city I lived in. Do South Korean cabs still do this?

[Yohan]

Seoul can be horribly crowded, worse than Tokyo. However I never had an experience like that in Seoul, Daejeon, Busan and it is the first time I hear something like that.

The only experience similar to that I had in Cambodia, for long distance taxi. However in a very honest way.
The taxi driver was asking me, what he should do.

For example: Route: Poipet border to/from Battambang.
USD 40 and he will start immediately, nonstop, nobody else with me in the car.
USD 30 and he will start immediately, but will pick up other passengers on route.
USD 20 and he will wait until some other people will show up asking for a taxi to the same destination.

But in Korea, never, neither in a city, nor for a longer route to sightseeing places beyond city limits.

[MrMan]

Seoul can be horribly crowded, worse than Tokyo. However I never had an experience like that in Seoul, Daejeon, Busan and it is the first time I hear something like that.

The only experience similar to that I had in Cambodia, for long distance taxi. However in a very honest way.
The taxi driver was asking me, what he should do.

For example: Route: Poipet border to/from Battambang.
USD 40 and he will start immediately, nonstop, nobody else with me in the car.
USD 30 and he will start immediately, but will pick up other passengers on route.
USD 20 and he will wait until some other people will show up asking for a taxi to the same destination.

But in Korea, never, neither in a city, nor for a longer route to sightseeing places beyond city limits.

I did not live in Seoul. I would visit another American, a friend of mine, I had worked with previously, on weekend trips to Seoul every so often. The only time I saw the driver try to pick up multiple customers was riding with this friend of mine. He explained he was trying to get another fair. We felt crowded enough and he objected, using whatever Korean he knew. But I never had a taxi driver do that to me other than that one time that I recall when I was in Korea, and I took taxis often.

But in Seoul, it was very common to shout out where you wanted to go and have a taxi driver shake his hand 'no' and drive off, especially if he was going the opposite direction. My friend and I could not figure it out, since we would have to pay him for the time to turn around.

When I lived 40 miles outside of Jakarta, taxis did not want to take me to another city. That is understandable, since they would have to drive back 40 miles without a fair.. Taxis wanting to go back home to that city at night would wait in a certain place near the toll road.

Jakarta has a 'bus way', and if it is not too crowded on the bus, you can get across town a lot quicker on these busses with a dedicated lane with no traffic than in a taxi, and use taxis for more nearby trips. Seoul has a subway, which is probably faster for nearby trips, but of course those can get dangerously crowded, also.

My information is from decades back, and it may be dated. I figured I'd bounce my stories off the forum and see if anyone had had similar experiences.

[MrMan]

Btw, @Yohan, it sounds like Vietnam may be one of those negotiate-the-taxi countries. With my foreign face, I hate that. Indonesia has meters. In the 1990's, I might have gotten into a cab that said the meter was broken. If they negotiate a fair, they are probably trying to cheat the taxi cab company. But I think some of them just pay a daily fee and do not care. When they upped the legal price of cab fairs, some cabs would advertise 'old fair' if they hadn't adjusted their meters (or had) and wanted to attract customers. BlueBird had a reputation for safety, and other taxis were at a disadvantage. Previously UBER, Grab, and Gojek, now just the latter two, would give you a price before you took a trip. So prices are not adjusted up for foreigners.

I almost got a job in China. I spent about 5 days there, and a student helped me to take a cab to the store. I thought this was going to be rough with a family my size. I might have to take two cabs. I'd have to negotiate the prices in Chinese and try not to pay a high foreign price. The cab was nasty inside, too. I was thinking about getting a van. It seemed possible to park it where I might have lived, on the grass on the side of the road maybe.