A new draft decree from the Transport Ministry would require all taxis in Vietnam to be equipped with black boxes and receipt printers in an effort to curb taxi scams in Vietnam, reports Thanh Nien.

Even the best of us have probably been ripped off by taxi drivers at some point – a driver taking us the ‘long way’; stepping into a fake cab mascaraing as one of the big brands; or being the victim of a rigged meter. While this draft decree probably won’t do much to address the first 2 issues, if implemented, it should help out with the third as drivers with be tracked via GPS for their entire shift.

The draft decree calls for the installation of printers and black boxes to begin on July 1, 2015 and would require that all taxis complete the upgrade within 1 year.

As one can imagine, taxi companies aren’t particularly keen on the prospect of having to shell out the cash for the equipment.

Ho Huy, chairman of Mai Linh Group, complained that it would cost VND100 billion ($4.69 million) to purchase just the receipt printers for its 11,000 taxis and Vinasun didn’t seem too stoked either:

“A Vinasun representative was quoted as saying that the 3G fees required to keep the boxes running in the company's 5,000 taxis would be devastating at a time when an increase in taxi fares is not economically feasible.”

Perhaps the financial threat of this decree will force the big taxi companies to crack down on scamming drivers in order to avoid having to pay the huge costs.

[Thanh Nien // Photo via Uy Huynh]