On Taxi Drivers
Yesterday after sending Nicole home from Changi Village, I took the cab home. Here’s a conversation between me and the taxi uncle after I said my destination.
Something in Chinese
Sorry, I don’t understand Chinese
You not Chinese?
I am… I’m Indonesian Chinese
What’s your father?
O.O Huh? As in? You mean race? He’s Chinese.
Mother?
Chinese also
But you dunno Chinese?
-.-
This entry was posted because the folks at Ping.sg were talking about taxis and complaints against taxis.
In my opinion, complaints should only be given when the driver deserves it, for example when he made really rude remarks, and not for the sole purpose to get any benefits like coupons or discounts. We do have to be mindful that their job is very monotonous, and sometimes they don’t have anyone else to talk to.
As for myself, as long as the taxi driver doesn’t cross the line, he can talk to me, complain about his job, etc. as long as I myself am in the mood to listen. If I am not, I’ll just close my eyes and give the driver one-word replies until he stops.
Fortunately, until now I only had to lodge a complain once. Readers of my old blog would have read this entry, but for the benefits of readers of the new blog, I shall repost it here:
Date: 18/11/2004
Time: 17:45
Taxi No: SHAxxxxG
Pick-Up Location: Near Far East Shopping Center / Wheelock Place
Destination: NTUThe driver (whose name we didn’t manage to copy) did not wear the seat belt properly and made loud remarks and jokes which can be considered as very rude in Malay/Indonesian throughout the trip. When we were silent, driver made an impolite remark that we were sleeping, and increased the volume of the radio, irritating us who were already tired by then. Along the PIE, the driver disregarded safety by talking on the phone without using a headset, and later on opening the driver-side window and gesturing (outside the car) towards another car on the expressway. When exiting the PIE, the driver opened the passenger-side window and made rude and very loud remark (over the passenger sitting next to the driver) towards a car which was involved in an accident. He was almost shouting then. The driver also cut a bus dangerously when turning into a junction inside NTU.
Two weeks later, I got an email saying that the taxi driver had been given a stern warning.
PS: Yeah, I still haven’t continued the Blockoo post. Things happened during the weekend and I wasn’t in the mood to complete it. I’ll complete it by this weekend. Promise.
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:11 pm
hehe… din complain d driver mer? i got some indo friends learning chinese 2… hendri u also learn some when u free ba =p i din know can complain bout taxi driver o… if not i also wanna complain few le last time…once d taxi driver took us to nus when we said ntu T_T n still charge us for the detour… next is another new taxi driver ask us how to go to pie or forgot wat expressway le, then took us to some residential area when we wanna go woodlands >.
July 2nd, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Haha yeah, am trying to learn Chinese in my spare time… Slowly la… Haha, sometimes taxi driver hear wrongly, got one time I said Jurong West and the driver brought me to Jurong East… Luckily it was along the way. If it’s along the way, I usually don’t fuss too much about it.
New driver shouldn’t drive when they don’t know the place… Usually what they do is they ask the passenger the directions. If the passenger also doesn’t know, they should consult the street directory first before proceeding.
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Well…. just excuse the taxi driver for being ignorant. Maybe he don’t know that a lot of indonesian chinese don’t know how to speak Mandarin. Maybe he doesn’t know the political background and history.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Yep, of course I excused the taxi driver, it’s no big deal after all. I was just surprised that he actually asked whether my parents are Chinese.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I’ve also ‘tried’ to send a complaint letter in the past… to Silvercab’s company - their service sucks, I tell you!
The taxi driver forgot to turn on the meter and didn’t apologize at all. Instead, he charged us higher than it normally costs us and made rude remarks in a rude tone, something about “It’s ok to make mistakes, everyone does it everyday, bla bla bla…” It’s already unacceptable that he forgot to turn on the meter, since it’s supposed to be his everyday routine. I wouldn’t mind about it much if he apologized nicely…. but he behaved rudely & even only looked at us from his rearview mirror!
I was so pissed that I called the customer service. But alas, it was weekend and even their customer service line was not available, geez… that made me even more pissed. Then faxed them a complaint letter, and no reply at all ever since! Didn’t bother to waste my time to go after them anymore, but I’ve a bad impression of them ever since >=(
Paiseh, long comment. I could’ve used this as my own blog entry, lol XD
July 4th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Haha it’s ok… I never liked other taxis than Comfort, unless I’ve no choice. So far Comfort is the best in terms of comfort (pun unintended) and service. =)
July 5th, 2007 at 12:51 am
My uncle drives a taxi, he tries to talk to customers sometimes. It’s not really easy. They’re just bored, they don’t really talk much and when you start talking most taxi driver’s get really excited.
I take a cab to camp most of the time and my camp is a reservist camp and I wear uniform to camp. (I ORD already.) Most taxi drivers will talk about their army experience and some even are ex-regulars from army. I had to listen to them talk about SOC mishaps, illtreatments, silly pranks they play and how good they are in IPPT!
July 5th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Yeah, I’m OK with taxi drivers talking a lot. Sometimes you can even get insights on things that you’ve never thought before. Just that some drivers don’t know where to draw the line and talk about, say, sensitive or rude things, which I do mind.
July 8th, 2007 at 1:46 am
That’s why I have a ‘No Comfort Here’ campaign. Comfort is targetted because it’s the largest cab company in SG. (I wanted to post the links to my blog but I decided not to.) - xizor2000.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Well every month there’s hundreds of new taxi driver on the road but also hundreds give up every month. New driver require to have a qualified Class 3 Singapore driving licence and
have at least 1 year’s driving experience with a clean driving record.
This also means those who have licence for 20years but neve drive are qualified. So dose those who only drive from point A to point B every day.
A question for you, let’s have all driver train to top. How much are you willing to pay your taxi fare? Well maybe train all driver like top service in UK and Japan and starting by SGD$50!!! Are you willing to pay for it?
You should thanks to maintaining of lower fare in Singapore when you compare to same startard country.