Hi there, I think some of you might have already heard about what happened, but I just wanted to share it with everyone so that you can be safer. On Monday March 6th at 10:00 pm, a friend and I were returning home by taxi. My friend is a local Taiwanese and she gave the driver directions to our building.
We asked the driver several times to turn down the street that we needed to turn on, but he kept driving straight and began screaming at us. She asked him to turn back the way that we needed to go and he became irate. As we came to the next intersection we asked him to please turn left, but he got in the right hand turn only lane. The light turned red and when we were stopped at the intersection he turned around leaned between the seats and was screaming at us. He was screaming "wai guo ren" (which means foreigner) and curse words.
At that point we were really scared and we thought we were in danger so we hurried out of the cab. We ran across the street, dropped the cab fare on the ground and ran away. The driver got out of the cab going towards the money, so we thought we were going to be ok, but the cab driver got back in his car followed us down the street got out of his cab and begun hitting us in the head. He gave my friend a swollen cheek and broke my nose.
We called the police and they took us all to the station. We told them that we wanted to press charges, but they suggested that we just accept the driver's apology and leave it at that. The police said that this is a very common crime in Taipei and that they thought is was too minor a crime to report. I am still proceeding with the charges, but the taxi driver was released the next day. And they said that it would take at least six months before it would make it to the courts. So the driver is still out there. I still can't believe that this happened, we have been here a year and have never had any problems. I still don't know why it happened. But I just wanted everyone to know about this so that you could be safer. The taxi number is 372-DE. Please let your friends know to stay away from this taxi and to be very conscious of their safety while taking taxis here. I am going to be ok; I am just freaked out over the whole incident.