I am an expat living in Bangkok and rely on public transportation to avoid high traffic of Bangkok. I like to read/think and text during the daily commute to the office. As for commuting to a destination disconnected to train or bus, I have to use public taxi to get there. Lately, I’ve been using Uber instead of public taxi service for these reasons:
- Communication problem with taxi driver. Language barrier.
- Tricky taxi driver driving around the unnecessary route.
- Refusing to go to some high-traffic destination.
- Comfort.
- Safety.
I ran into 2 blog entries that highlights some aspects about owning a car vs Uber or Lyft and decided to added some personal opinions. You can read the following entries to get some expert perspective and result of the research.
I never own a car and this is based on the experience sharing from friends who are driving with their personal cars. The following list shows the problem of owning/driving a car at BKK
- Parking parking parking…
- Traffic
- Maintenance
- Additional cost of car such as parking ticket, speeding tickets and accessories
Of course! there are several advantages of owning a car. You don’t need to wait. Drive whatever you want. Don’t need to worry about bad driver. You can customize it the way you want. These are the advantages we can’t get from Uber or public taxi. I have bad experience with some Uber driver such as awful navigation issue, small and uncomfortable car, unreliable driver and so on.
Apart from the cost efficiency point of view, it is more of personal preference and people who like to drive continues driving with the known trade-offs of driving. The previously mentioned buzzfeed blog said “owning a car will become a thing of the past.” but it’s a difficult thing to say now. I don’t like to drive but most of my friends like to drive. Owning a car means a social status among the community and current generation’s teenagers and young adults still love to drive.
Until the tax, energy and price tag of a car is affordable, driving craze will continue driving and people like me will keep using car services. As simple as that…