I jump in and out of HK cabs with such frequency, you'd think I was actually going somewhere important. Most times I'm on my way to someplace I can walk to in 20 minutes. But I'm lazy so I take a cab and pay the minimum "flag down" rate.
When I moved here that rate was HK$15. At just slightly more than US$2 (the price of a bus ride in Manhattan), I can get driven around in a cab. A few months ago, when the price of oil was more than US$150 a barrel, they raised the base rate to HK$16. I thought nothing of it except for the hassle of extra coins I needed to accept as change.
Now it's HK$18, a 20% increase in 2 years. It's still cheap compared to Singapore, but not cheap enough so that I can hail a cab mindlessly anytime I please.
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