The taxi driver who took me to Pudong airport last week was a talker. He made a pretense at inviting a response at the every one of his pronouncements, but this was just a platitude and it was clear he preferred to hear himself talk. Unfortunately, he talked a lot faster than he drove and I was worried I might not make the plane.
Although he rambled a lot, the driver kept coming back to the gas situation and dwelling on the problems of getting fuel. According to him, gas had increased by 8 jiao (about 10 cents) over the last two months. . However, cab fares seem to have stayed the same, so this is undoubtedly squeezing profits and making it even tougher for drivers to eke out what is already a tenuous existence. Beyond this price increase was a shortage that was having increasingly serious consequences. Drivers have begun lining up at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning to make sure they could get enough fuel. There have also been a number of cases where a number of gas stations had been shut down because they were found to have been mixing water with the gas and then selling it at gas prices
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