Crazy Taxi!

While tourists are probably quite sick of getting ripped off by Prague's many taxis, taxi drivers aren't too happy about having to give up ripping off tourists - and controlling their rates in general, of course. The taxi drivers of the city of Prague have filed a lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The law at the moment gives the municipal authorities the right to dictate the prices that taxi drivers can charge, which at the moment sits at 28 CZK per kilometer. Those that charge more can lose their license. According to the representative of the taxi drivers' labour union, this present rate forces the taxi drivers either rip off their customers (as many of us have been witness to) or work overtime, even 16 or 18 hours a day. In protest, one taxi driver has even gone as far as declaring a hunger strike, beginning yesterday.

This comes after a massive protest two weeks ago by taxi drivers, after the Czech newspaper Mlada Fronda DNES published an article documenting how some of Prague?s taxi drivers really were cheating their customers. Pretending to be foreign tourists, the journalists found six taxi drivers out of ten overcharged for their service. Makes you want to reconsider our taxi tips!