Thai Government Likely to Legalize Grab in Near Future

Thailand’s Land Transport Department (LTD) has said the ride-hailing service Grab will likely be legalized in the Kingdom.

The announcement comes after months of discussion and debate over the subject as well as regular news stories of fiery clashes in the streets between traditional taxi drivers and Grab drivers.

The last step the LTD needed to take to move forward with legalizing Grab was to consult the public.

Finally, they’ve finished that consultation, receiving over 1,000 positive comments about Grab from the public.

They will now send that report to the Transport Ministry who–upon approval–will begin instituting legal accommodations for Grab and similar ride-sharing apps.

Despite being technically illegal in Thailand, ride-sharing services such as Grab are massively popular due to being more reliable and cheap than a traditional car and motorbike taxis.

Traditional taxi drivers have lobbied the government many times for them to do something about ride-hailing services that they claim are stealing their livelihood.

On top of that, brutal fights between taxi drivers and Grab drivers have become an extremely common phenomenon in Thailand in recent times–often resulting in serious injuries or even deaths.

It’s yet to be seen how traditional motorbike and car taxi drivers will react to any legalization to ride-sharing apps, but protests to the change are likely.

Read the full story here.