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In reply to the discussion: Completely f'd up business practice I just found out about [View all]MrModerate
(9,753 posts)Because it makes life easier, makes figuring out costs less scary, doesn't trigger a guilt reflex, and is just more straight-up honest. With regard to trusting restaurateurs, that's another matter. They're as much entrapped in the tipping culture as anyone else. But they can learn.
Hmm. Single-payer healthcare funding might go a looooong way to alleviating customers' anxieties on the equity front.
The 'ride up front with the cabbie' is universal in Australia, for exactly the reasons you explain. (With the exception that if the passengers are a couple, it's understood that they'll ride together in back.) It's part of the "tall poppy syndrome," where Australians really don't like it if you put yourself forward as better than the next guy. This has societal plusses and minuses, of course.
One interesting thing now going on in Perth is that they're trying to introduce London-style taxis, where all the passengers sit in the back, and the front passenger seat isn't even very accessible to passengers. People don't like it, and the experiment is likely to be a failure unless they modify the design somewhat. The fact that the taxis are not fully compliant with Aussie safety standard doesn't help, of course.