25% Of Las Vegas Cab Drivers Ripping You Off

Taxi drivers in Las Vegas have been ripping people off for years. It’s not really a secret and it looks like the government is finally going to do something about it. Last week they set up check points to see how many taxi drivers were long hauling passengers from McCarran Airport and here’s what they found.

About one-fourth of the 48 taxi drivers that passed this point on Thursday were given long-hauling citations

It’s a small sample size and that number is less than previously estimated. Most people that were pulled aside for this didn’t want to press charges against these crooked taxi drivers. They just wanted to get to their hotel. They’re on vacation…in Las Vegas…who wants to waste more time in a taxi? I wouldn’t.

That’s where the taxi drivers get you. They know you want to go have fun and you want to get to it as quick as possibly. If you’ve never been to Las Vegas before you won’t even know that 3-5 minutes is being added to your drive and if you’ve been to Las Vegas before you likely won’t care about the extra few bucks because you just want to go have fun.

If you find that you’re overcharged by a taxi driver and don’t feel like dealing with it at the moment because you’re on vacation, that’s fine. Just do two simple things and deal with it when you get home.

Take pictures of your taxi and your driver.
Submit a complaint to the Nevada Taxicab Authority

The more complaints that are submitted the sooner the government will do something about this. Think of this as paying it forward so someone else doesn’t get ripped off by these crooked taxi drivers.

Believe it or not there’s actually good news from this sting on taxi drivers overcharging customers. Last year estimates on Las Vegas taxi drivers long hauling were much higher than 25%.

Some drivers put the percentage of long haul rides at 50 percent or even 70 percent.

The truth on Vegas taxi drivers ripping you off is probably somewhere in between the range that were caught last week (25%) and the estimates from last year (50%-70%). That doesn’t make this problem better. It just makes it, potentially, less worse.

Note: Not all taxi drivers in Las Vegas are crooked so treat the good drivers well so we can keep them.

Photo: Wikipedia