The BBC reports that soon patients could be haggling with ambulance drivers over the meter:

• Ambulance drivers in Beijing decide how much to charge patients for their services. As the process is opaque this has led to complaints about overcharging.
• To deal with this, ambulances in Beijing will be installing taxi style meters for transparent fare calculations.
• The meter will record $7.50 for a 3km trip, and an additional $1 for every kilometer thereafter.
• Users have pointed out that this could lead to an unfortunate situation, where an ambulance takes a passenger in critical condition on a longer route to the hospital, to maximize earnings.

Centives has previously covered how Russians use ambulances as personal taxis, and the sports car ambulance that Dubai is considering.

Read more about Beijing’s ambulance meters here.

Source: BBC

Via: Marginal Revolution