Here in Thailand we like hubs. I’m not talking about bicycle hubs, though we like those too. I’m talking about world hubs, and while we are yet to be the hub of anything really constructive, it hasn’t stopped successive governments from trying.
Normally this column requires a little research time, but for me to go back and see just how many different hubs governments have tried — and failed — to create would not only be exhaustive. It would also be a waste of time.
You can name just about any aspect of the public or private sectors and somewhere along the line a government minister intent on justifying his existence has tried to establish that as a hub. We wanted to be a hub for computer chips. When that didn’t work we went for the more expansive, abstract IT hub. There was a big push to be the car-manufacturing hub. Back in the 1990s there was talk of us becoming the pineapple hub of the world — why would anyone want to be that? Surely “The Land of Smiles” sounds better than “The Hub of Pineapples”?
The list of failed hubs is too long and depressing; the factory canning hub, the seminar hub, the movie hub, the logistics hub, the aviation hub, the international exhibition hub … honourable mention goes to the move to make us the reading hub of the world. Some slightly embarrassing statistics, namely the fact that Thais on average read eight lines of text a year, killed that one.
A more cynical columnist would now point out that Thailand is already the hub for some dubious industries. I am restricted by space but allow me to ooze a little cynicism; we’ve been a hub for counterfeit products for three decades now. We used to be the hub for pirated music, but that dissipated a good decade ago though not through any police crackdown or pressure from overseas. It was more Napster and the rise of MP3s.
It’s not all bad. We are a tourist hub. A subset of that is we have become a hub for unsophisticated Chinese tourists who have a predilection for urinating in wash basins. We recently became a hub for human trafficking thanks to Rohingya refugees and the local fishing industry. And if we’re not careful, instead of being the aviation hub we so desire to steal from Singapore, the International Civil Aviation Organisation is threatening to turn us into an aviation black hole.
Earlier this year Uber, the world’s biggest taxi company that doesn’t own a single vehicle, chose Thailand as the place to roll out its newest service, namely UberMoto. It was an app which enabled passengers to book and utilise a fresh-faced young motorcyclist wearing an Uber helmet, as opposed to the skanky orange-vested boys at the end of my soi.
There are probably not that many cities in the world who have such a thriving motorcycle taxi industry, which is why Uber chose Bangkok as the place to kick it all off. In other words, Thailand had the potential to become the hub for motorcycle taxis apps!
I can live with that even if I am not a regular customer of Bangkok’s motorcycle taxis, chiefly because I understand and value the precious fabric of life itself. There are cleaner ways to commit suicide than engaging the services of guys in orange vests. I do, however, understand the necessity of their services and if it means we become the hub of motorcycle taxis applications then good luck to us.
Unfortunately, Uber is a foreign company and as Thais like to repeatedly drill into our foreign skulls, it had no true understanding of Thai culture.
In its naivety Uber figured it could barge into Bangkok and start up a motorcycle service app without playing by the local rules. It failed to consider the shadowy system of drivers who pay lots of money to influential types to ensure an orange vest with their name on it which is registered with the Department of Land Transport.
The Motorcycle Taxi Association of Thailand went ballistic. That’s the association that the boys in orange must register with in order to sit at the end of Bangkok sois playing Thai chess and surreptitiously sipping rice whisky in between passengers. Things came to a head earlier this month when one MTAT biker bullied and harassed an UberMoto driver who dared to enter his territory. The UberMoto driver got charged for offering public transport using a private vehicle; the MTAT bully got a “severe” warning, which witnesses described as some of the fiercest knitting of brows ever seen on the face of a local police officer.
The group that really spat the dummy was the Department of Land Transport. Uber taxi drivers, it said, were not registered drivers. Unregistered drivers were not just illegal, said the DLT; they were downright dangerous for passengers.
I like the DLT’s sound and fury but its argument requires the basis that registered taxi drivers don’t endanger the lives of passengers.
As I write this I have just completed a car ride where I nearly collided with a legally registered orange-vested taxi motorcyclist driving the wrong way down a narrow one-way road under a bridge.
And did you miss the story of the legally registered taxi driver, arrested yet again last week, for trying to fleece a Turkish passenger of 15,000 baht for a 2,000 baht ride? He did the same thing last month but somehow was back in the saddle. When threatened with arrest this time he answered: “Don’t worry. I’ll be back driving soon.” One guesses that only legally registered drivers have the confidence to make such bold assertions. They are, after all, legal.
At least it makes you understand why UberMoto had to be declared illegal — if the legally registered drivers are so damned dangerous, just imagine how deadly the unregistered ones must be.
The DLT says privately owned bikes can’t be used as public transport. The app was declared null and void, and Bangkok was no longer the experimental station of UberMoto. The app was just too transparent and efficient for the way we do things here in Bangkok.
And so the app died, not so much for its illegality, but more because Uber was afraid it was only a matter of time before one of the orange shirts shot dead an Uber biker.
Now this is where things get exciting.
On Wednesday, May 18, the DLT declared UberMoto illegal. Six days later, on Tuesday, May 24 — or 144 hours after the app got the boot — the aggrieved orange-vests themselves launched their own app called Go Bike.
Six days later? Good lord. That’s quicker than the Silom street vendors used to take to counterfeit the latest Madonna album!
Go Bike is the product of the Motorcyle Taxi Association of Thailand, the very same people who jumped up and down screaming when UberMoto reared its pristine head. “Our app not only makes travelling more convenient, it is safe as well,” said MTAT chairman Chalerm Changthongmadadan last Monday. “That’s because the drivers are legally registered with the DLT.”
I downloaded the Go Bike app from the Apple App Store today.
How attractive and easy-to-navigate it is, very much in the style of UberMoto. In fact, it’s almost the spitting image of UberMoto other than the orange colour scheme. The same way to order a biker. The same information presented in the same way. Well done Go Bike! If this trend continues, we may even end up the copycat hub of the world! n
This source first appeared on Bangkok Post Lifestyle.