Tallinn : the capital of taxi mafia !

Toomas Hõbemägi

Estonian MP Imre Sooäär wonders why Tallinn City Government and Mayor Edgar Savisaar do nothing to stop the taxi mafia.

In an opinion article in Õhtuleht, Sooäär writes that one of his Italian friends promised recently never to return to Estonia after he was forced to pay a thousand kroons for a ride from the city centre to the Tallinn Airport.

“This is daylight robbery!” said the Italian who had not asked how much the ride would cost assuming that it would be normal price for a 15 kilometre ride. When arriving and being asked to pay a thousand kroons he asked the taxi driver for a price list which said 65 kroons a kilometer. “I pay twice less at home although the distance is three times longer,” he said.

Sooäär writes that the lack of interest of Savisaar’s city government to stop such daylight robbery leads one to believe that this taxi mafia is secretly funding the City Government.

According to the MP, Savisaar is not understanding that such problems affect the image of Tallinn as a tourist destination. Cities that are friendly to tourists have the taxi business under control.

“Taxi is almost the first point of contact and the first impression of a tourist who arrives in Tallinn for the first time. We have renovated the airport terminal, but the taxi situation is the same. I don’t know any other town in Europe where the taxi business is so out of control. Many cities have established maximum allowed tariffs, but not Tallinn. So we have Laki Takso where a kilometer costs 5.90 kroons and on the other end FIE Fiat that charges 65 kroons per kilometer. Such gap is outrageous.”

Sooäär says that while otherwise the state or government should not interfere with regulating free business, the situation with the tax business is different since it affects the whole image of the country. Moreover, there are reportedly areas in Tallinn Old Town where taxi drivers that do not pay to mafia cannot wait for customers. If they do they will have their tires punctured or may be beaten up. What’s worse is that the city has no control over who taxi companies hire as driver which means that even convicted criminals or people with bad traffic record may freely operate as taxi drivers.