Almost half of the inspected taxi drivers are breaking the law and other regulations. One of the most common offences is overcharging customers by not correctly informing them about price. Other offences include incorrect charging of extra fees and supplements and using some crooked business practices. This data comes from the Czech Trade Government Inspection office from 144 randomly checked cabbies during the first quarter of 2009. The inspection also discovered that one of the drivers used an illegal taxi meter, which resulted in inflated taxi fares. One “positive” figure is that the city of Prague is not the worst in the chart. In Prague, out of 43 cabbies, 16 violated the law, but in some regions like South Bohemia and Vysocina, the statistics are even worse (from 12 cabbies, 10 failed).
Tip: Avoid taxis around the main tourist sights; these can often be the worst offenders. Few taxi drivers speak more than the most rudimentary English, so that communication can be difficult. Unless your Czech pronunciation is good, please write down your destination for them in Czech or pre-book a taxi online.
My family and I were in Prague last week and went on a boat trip with my elderly and infirm mother. She can only walk a limited amount and after getting her back up the steps at Charles Bridge, she collapsed. We decided to try and get a taxi to get her back to the Metro. My brother-in-law managed to flag a taxi and my mother and sister got in, we told the driver to take them to the Metro at Nemasti Republicky. The driver gave us the thumbs up, indicating that he understood, however, when he drove off, he was insisting to them that he took them to their hotel. They refused and kept reiterating Metro, the driver became very abusive and threatening and my mum and sister were very frightened. He insisted they give him 900k which they did, then he started shouting, no, per person, so they gave him another 800k. He dropped them off about 3 stations on from where they should have been dropped off, and where we were supposed to meet them.
It was a silver taxi, with a taxi sign on the top of the car. We just thought they would be safe because it was an official taxi, if only we had known.
Going home last Tuesday, we had three taxi’s booked, our driver was brilliant, he dropped us off at terminal one but unfortunately for my mother, their taxi dropped them off at terminal two. She then had a long slow walk to terminal one as the airport would not let her have the use of a wheelchair,they said we had to ask the airline. We eventually got checked in and they promised to have a wheelchair available in 10mins. It never materialised and we had to walk her all the way to the gate. We got home early hours of Wednesday morning and my mother had a heart attack. She is now in intensive care and we have been called in twice already to say ‘goodbye’, luckily she’s rallied so far.
I never ever want to see the Czech Republic again!!!!!!!