The scam works by first picking up an inebriated foreigner with the rear window lowered a few inches. When the passenger arrives at his or her destination, gets out, and closes the door, the rear window will often shatter. The cab driver will then accuse the passenger of slamming the door too hard and breaking the window. In their drunken state, foreigners have been known to provide up to HK$2,000 (US $258) in compensation.

What the cab drivers are actually doing is exploiting a design flaw of these taxi cabs. When the rear window is lowered a few inches, it can hit against the door joint, causing it to shatter upon being closed.

A number of cases have been reported to police. In one case the passenger was forced to provide compensation despite police involvement because no witnesses were at the scene.

As EJ Insight reports, Kwan Yuk-wah, chairman of the Urban Taxi Drivers Association Joint Committee, said the normal charge for repairing a damaged window is HK$300. Kwan added that taxi drivers usually remind passengers not to slam the door if the window is lowered.

No word on if or when the design flaw will be fixed.

Photos: Flickr

At 1 a.m. on Oct. 11, a man surnamed Chen drunkenly attacked a man surnamed Tang with a knife after mistakenly thinking he was starting a fight in Gemi Bar. Tang was stabbed in the chest and didn’t survive, Chen was detained.

An investigation into the bar showed it had inadequate fire safety equipment, and a further investigation showed that many of the bars lacked fire safety equipment or their existing equipment had expired.

The city’s Ministry of Culture discovered that all of the bars had seen their licences expire in 2009 or 2010. Authorities in Longhua explained that their cooperation with the Baoan District government had decreased in recent years as they had been given more autonomy.

For this reason, there was a failure to delegate responsibility.

In May of this year, Lu Yi, Party chief of Longhua New Zone told reporters: “Longhua is planning 200 billion yuan (US$32 billion) of investments in the next five years to become a high-standard, booming region. The GDP will increase 100 billion yuan by 2015.” Good luck with that.

In 2008, a nightclub fire caused by a fireworks display in Longgang District killed 43 and injured 65. 13 people were arrested, which was presumably as much in the name of Darwinism as it was in the name of justice.