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Comment by grawprog | Hacker News Reader

I know my area fairly well enough to be able to roughly figure out what the fair should be and can tell if a taxi driver is fucking around trying to take a longer route. I tend to plan my fairs with a decent tip in mind. If there's any unnecessary deviations from the ideal route, I just subtract the time from whatever tip I was going to leave. It's only happened once or twice and every time it's worked out i've given around the same amount of money I was going to anyway, they just receive no tip out of it. I imagine this strategy would fail in a different city.

Honestly though, 99% of taxis i've ever taken where there's more than one route, the driver usually asks which route i'd like to take. I've never used lyft or uber or any of those so I can't really comment on them.

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This strategy could be slightly improved by never tipping.

That would not be an improvement as that directly exposes a perverse incentive.

Yeah, but I call the same taxi place a lot and because I tip, if I get a driver that recognizes me they show up really quickly, i've had them cancel a fare they were on their way to to grab me instead. The way I see it, i've relied on taxi drivers to get me home when i've been in states where i would have been fucked otherwise. I look at them the same as people that handle your food. If i'm getting into someone's car drunk, it's always nice to know the person driving thinks positively of you. I'm also kind of wary of them and try to be polite, i've got a friend who was taken to the railroad tracks and beaten by a group of taxi drivers for being rude.

So, that taxi driver screwed over another person because of your bribe/tip? They might have needed one just as much as you or more don't you think? I think that's exactly what's wrong with tipping culture.

That's why I like how with services like Uber, it's very unlikely to get the same person who drove you previously. No pressure to have to bribe anyone to do their job.

He lives in a place where taxi drivers beat you bloody for being rude. Where ever that is has got a lot more problems to solve before tackling tipping culture.

Heck, if I lived there and were forced to take a cab, I would tip heavily upfront just to protect myself.

For some reason I had brushed over the fact that he mentioned a bunch of taxi drivers just meeting up to kick someone's ass for being rude or whatever that means. That's pretty surreal to imagine.

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