The "Ugly Singaporean Cab Driver"

I realised quite some years back that trying to grab an empty cab in Singapore at 11.45pm was about as difficult as striking the lottery. Somehow, cab drivers just “happen” to need their pee break, or smoke break, or supper break, or do-nothing break, before they came out again in full force when the midnight taxi surcharge kicked in at 12am. These cabbies are a little bit like Cinderella, I always thought.

As most things evolve with time, this problem has taken on a whole new form. These days, its difficult to grab a cab even at 8pm! I have recently experienced, on more than a few occasions, snakingly long queues at taxi stands, especially those outside malls. Plenty of empty cabs drive by the malls. Few turn into the taxi-stands. Everyone at the taxi queue holding on to their cell phones, some dialing furiously, some frustrated with holding on the taxi hotlines, everyone trying to “Dial-a-cab” while still holding on to their position in the taxi queue.

Whenever an empty taxi turns in to the taxi stand, everyone in the queue holds their breath with the anticipation of the queue shortening by at least one person, only to be disappointed with the “On Call” sign on top of the cab. Some “On Call” cabs do fail to pick up their intended passengers (who might have left in other cabs or maybe decided to take the bus or MRT instead). Instead of picking up those of us from the taxi queue, most of the empty cabs just drive away.

After a while, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these same cabs just drive out around the corner, wait for our calls to come in, before they turn back into the taxi stand for their additional $4 booking fee. After realising this fact, many of us in the taxi stand just succumb to dialing a cab, as few of us are willing to wait forever for our turn in the taxi queue.

I am seriously pissed with this “Ugly Singaporean Cab Driver” phenomenon. While I understand that it’s a bonus to earn the $4 booking fee, I feel that taxi drivers are providing a service and hence should not have a right to refuse picking up passengers from taxi stands. Imagine what would happen if doctors start refusing patients unless they paid extra fees for house calls!

Anyhow, I'm sure there are still some nice cabbies out there. But for now, I have decided, that I will boycott taxis. Though I dislike taking the bus, I think it may prove to be faster than waiting for a taxi that will almost never come, and I, for one, don’t want to feed these "ugly cab drivers' attitude problems!