Eshin Direct

Apparently, a kid in Thailand decided he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in Grand Theft Auto IV. Of course, the taxi driver fought back to tragic consequences. As a result the game has been banned to stem the potential recreations of in-game scenes.

However, anyone with any experience with the taxis in Singapore will tell you that you do not really need a game to spur you on to violence towards cabbies over here. The taxi situation in Singapore remains one of the biggest shames for a nation trying to position itself as a tourist and business travel destination. And unfortunately, the taxi drivers themselves seem to bear the brunt of a ineffectual policies within the transport system aimed at taxis and a bloated fat-cat quasi-civil service corporate landscape and an unforgiving public. It has even turned violent with attacks on taxis increasing in Singapore.

Thankfully, I have only taken maybe 2 or 3 taxi rides in the last 3 months so my general frustration level with this area of Singapore’s transport system is down somewhat. I suppose that provides a solution of sorts to those frustrated with the Singapore taxi system.

In my new zen-like state achieved through not actually using taxis, I can offer some explanation to the erratic behavior Singapore taxi drivers exhibit in order for people to better understand.

1. No Taxis at Critical Times

This is not the taxi driver’s fault. Shift changes at peak rush hour times should be perfectly acceptable. This fault has something to do with the high-costs of the taxis and the need for taxis to be shared by three shifts of driver. It has nothing to do with them sitting at Changi Airport in mass queues and waiting for hours for the rate band to change to a higher rate.

2. Taxi Driver Not Know Where to Go

Again, this is not the taxi driver’s fault. Printed maps are obsolete so you really can’t expect taxis to carry them in their vehicles. Nifty little GPS consoles are nice but you cannot also expect the taxi company to actually spend money to train the cabbies to use the on-board navigation. Besides, this is Asia so face is quite important, showing that you do not know how to do your job would be very bad, so the best thing to do is ask the passenger to do it for you (note this might be mistaken for not knowing how to do your job but in actually fact it shows that the driver is actually quite smart since he’s passing the responsibility of doing his job back to you.)

3. Eh?

Eh? How can you not fall in love with the common greeting used by Singaporean taxi drivers when you tell them where to go? Eh? I said, how can you not fall in love with the common greeting used by Singaporean taxi drivers when you tell them where to go. This is really your fault because you probably didn’t alert the taxi driver that you were about to speak to him (say, “Uncle!”) and you didn’t use a short throw away line of gibberish just to prepare him for the answer after the second “Eh?”. It also helps helps to talk real slow too.

4. Rude Service

No really, how would you feel driving people around the whole day to where they need to get to? Or just sort of a ten minute walk from where they need to be. Or generally to the nearest taxi stand? It’s not like they are actually getting paid to be nice to you. I once had a taxi driver that told me I was lying about a conversation that I had with another taxi driver (first taxi had refused since he was on shift change, but second taxi just didn’t want to earn his fee for me just sitting in his cab and take me from end of Orchard to another). This completely was my fault so I did ask him kindly to take me to the nearest police station so that we could settle this. He wisely declined.

5. Advance Fee Payment

This is not the taxi driver’s fault if they have accepted an advance job and they don’t arrive on time. You cannot expect the taxi driver to be at a particular time even with 20 minutes warning, despite the fact that anywhere in Singapore is pretty much 20 minutes. It is just not feasible when they need to cram in as many jobs as possible before yours. You are only paying a small 5 buck surcharge on your fare for advanced bookings. It’s not like you are paying them 3.5 bucks for the fare they took before yours.

Okay, to be fair not all taxi drivers are like this. But I have noticed my stress-level with Singapore has gone down with since I have been freed of being held hostage to a taxi service gone bad.

Tags: customer service, singapore, taxis, video game