Taxis drivers are grossing me out...

[sputnik]

Now I am not wanting to making any generalisations here, but I seem to be getting a lot of 'bad apple' taxi drivers.

This is aside from the driving skills topic, which is a whole new kettle of fish. I am talking about taxi drivers with bad personal habits.

I will start with the least offensive one, which is listening to crappy love songs at an unacceptable volume. Easily solved by asking taxi driver to turn off that crap, or listening to Rammstein on iPod at high volume...

...or the taxi that smelt like it had been a whole clove of garlic in a previous life...

...Then there is the plucking of facial hair using two small coins held together as a makeshift tweezer. When travelling for twenty minutes in a taxi, that was a lot of hair, believe me...

...Followed by the taxi driver clearing his throat at regular intervals, actually constantly, and loudly gobbing into hankies. Tried the Rammstein thing again to drown out gutteral sounds.

Am I alone here? Should I seek therapy????

[Wind In My Hair]

Am I alone here? Should I seek therapy????

a simpler and cheaper solution - take the bus and mrt. much more pleasant. sometimes faster depending on where you're going to and from. more to see too. and safer.

[sputnik]

Most of the time I do actually take the bus - but sometimes it is unavoidable when out late at night, or late for a meeting etc.

[superedge]

Most of the time I do actually take the bus - but sometimes it is unavoidable when out late at night, or late for a meeting etc.

I hope you never the taxis I get after playing soccer

[sapphire]

All cabs here smell of rice, I like it.

Sputnik, buy a car, all problems solved. Or go for therapy, you're paying way too much attention to the cabbie! I will admit though, that those love songs get on my nerves as well. Having said that, the most interesting thing for me in Singapore is my chat sessions with the cabbies. Great lot!

[samantha]

i got one who didn't know where my destination was. he dumped the street directory back to us and asked me and my friend to find it and tell him where the street was... finally after going around in circles... he dropped us off and told ask to walk around as it should be "somewhere around here"... and guess wat? we had to pay for his "service"... $14

[dot dot dot]

Back in the days before we drove a car, I never ever had a cab driver who was not friendly to me, when I was friendly to him. It takes some to get some.

Back in my homecountry, in Amsterdam, more than 60% of the cabdrivers are criminals, mostly involved in cocaine and other drug trafficking. You would pay about 80 Euros (160 singapore dollar) to get from one side of town to the other side (and Amsterdam is considerably smaller than Singapore).

Here the cabbies are often retrenched people, who still try to make a living, I respect that.

It is no fun, having to deal with all kinds of people, ranging from arrogant expats, telling you your car smells to party poopers who vomit all over your car. Day in day out, at least 12 hours a day.

Again, a lot of respect for that...

Eric

[Barczar]

You're definately NOT alone and it is not YOU that needs to seek Therapy! I've used Taxis as my main mode of transportation on every continent on Earth and believe me, the Taxis here are pretty amazing in comparison to most other cities; however, you are definitley right, the personal habits here are questionable at best! If it's not the Pandung leaf or other mystery smells, it's the sickening stop and go driving habits, snorting and hacking and coughing that could expell the devil itself from their inner most bowels and the music that could drive a man to drink! But bear in mind, if you wanted to ride in style you can always call a Mercedes Limo instead or get the number to one of the many licensed car and drivers that will open an account for you. The most beautiful thing about Singapore is that if you want to do cheap, you can...but you can also do it in style! Compare the price of your taxi rides to that of you fuel costs, insurance, maintenance, parking, fear of driving under the influence, and the cost of the vehicle itself!! No matter how you stack it up and even if you are using a Limo everyday it is usually waaay cheaper than running a vehicle back where ever you call home! You get what you pay for in the end! If you get any talk back from the Taxi Drivers, gently remind them that they are NOT doing you a favour...you are PAYING for their SERVICE! It's a foreign concept on this side of the world! The one thing here in Singapore is that although I can appreciate that the Taxi Drivers are just trying to make a living, however, when they are on Shift Change during peak rush hour traffic and drive right on by, they get NO sympathy from me!

[Shilo2010]

i got one who didn't know where my destination was. he dumped the street directory back to us and asked me and my friend to find it and tell him where the street was... finally after going around in circles... he dropped us off and told ask to walk around as it should be "somewhere around here"... and guess wat? we had to pay for his "service"... $14

I had a similar experience ten years ago. the fair came to 25 bucks, I gave the guy 15. We argued, he left only to return twenty minutes later with the cops. I still refused to pay, three hours later, in a small cell, I finnaly gave in and payed the bloody money. grumble grumble grumble.

[sapphire]

On the flip side, a cabbie actually returned some money to me 'cause he took some long winded route and felt that he did not deserve the whole cab fare. According to the meter, I owed him 14 bucks, he returned 7 bucks to me!

On two occasions, my hubby left his mobile behind, got it back both times.
So far, I've had a fight with a cabbie once! He was amazingly arrogant, I put it down to him having a bad day, though I did give him an earful.
A few times when I've been a little aggressive with them, have been put in my place by extremely polite responses making me feel like a leper instantly!

[babykasim]

my experience with cab drivers here so far so good.
only once I encountered a racist cab driver - just gave hime some harsh words before asking him to enjoy his driving while i enjoy the scenery outside

sometimes u get annoyed with drivers who didn't know direction as well - but i think most of these drivers are old and when you helped them finding the way, it shouldn't be a problem rite - just talk politely and they'll do that in return.

probably start with a 'hello uncle' when u hop in the taxi and the journey will be great (though sometimes i wish the shut their mouth cos I want to sleep )

*this reminds me, the uncle from my trip last night should be on his way to shanghai with a bag of clothes and a bag of kitchen stuffs

[Bubbles]

Reminds me of a maid of a friend of mine.............one Sunday, after her day off, in she comes all crying and ranting saying that a taxi driver had shouted at her and threatened her.........well, my friend was really worried, going to call the police etc, she was very fond of her maid.......

Anyway, after more sobs and whatever, the maid said, 'Please ma'am, don't call the police, it's not that bad.......'

Turned out that when the maid had got out of the taxi early at Far East Plaza, on the way to her day out....that she'd opened the roadside door of the taxi, and another car had rammed into it and the cab's door was hanging off.......taxi man went mad, maid saying not my fault, other maids joining in, tourists joining in...........and in the end my friend never got to the truth of whether the police were called then and there and spent a week worrying that the cops would turn up at her door, plus taxi man, either wanting compensation or to cart the girl off to the police station.

Nothing happened, but funny how there's more than two sides to a situation, and poor taxi man, one minute your car has a door, then next, it's an open air model.........haha...(no one hurt, by the way.)

[Vaucluse]

Ah, cabbies . . . One of my favourite subjects.

In general, cabbies in Singapore are brilliant, in terms of knowing their way, not expecting a tip, cleanliness of their vehicle, chit-chat etc . . .

The only place where cabs are cleaner is Japan, but they don't know their way around at all, can't speak english (or is that I can't speak japanese?) and always hit me in the crotch with their automatically opening doors.

Sydney!!! Only swarth Arabs, Mainland Chinese and Indians of recent arrival in Oz may apply. Next time you're there, check out their taxi license pictures - the Chinese ones are all the same person.

London - shivvvvvvvvver when I think of the price . . .

Seoul - It's in Korea, 'nuff said.

Hong Kong - They are great teachers - I learned all of my cantonese swearwords from them - excellent people, salt of the earth and imbued with a vocabulary second to none.

Kuala Lumpur - funny how their meters don't work and it gets more expensive when there is:
a) a lot of traffic
b) very little traffic
c) raining
d) not raining

Bangkok - ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahaha

Beijing/Shanghai/Harbin - I am too polite to write this in english, but here we go: Gottverdammte Arschloecher.

Mumbai and Delhi - actually can't say many bad things about them, aside from that they should air their vehicles more - like only have a chassis, engine and wheels . . .

Anywhere in Germany - absolute coooooooool and comfort!

Darn, I have to cut this short, dinnertime.


Ergo sum = Singapore cabbies are head and shoulders above many others - as Eric said - respect for taking the new challenge after being retrenched, for many of them. (But saying hello uncle only gets a similar response in 37% of the cases )

[Plavt]

In London there are two sets of cabbies, the well known Black Cab drivers and the mini cab drivers. Black Cab drivers are quite a mixture of characters; some are arrogant pigheaded and blatantly racist amongst other things. Some of them will even turn down a journey if it takes them to a part of London where they are unlikely to get a passenger on the return leg. On the other hand they are the best at knowing their way around the capital and behind not least due to the strict testing standards they have to endure before being awarded their license. However, they are very expensive from Heathrow airport to where I live (around an hours drive and a London Borough) the fare is around £100 possibly more!! Mini-cabs are the biggest cheats, often not knowing the way, charging excessive fares, touting for business at airline terminals amongst other places. As you may imagine you may often have grave doubts about such drivers who can often be illegal immigrants, rapist possibly, dole cheats, tax evasionist or somebody working two jobs for whatever reason. As a tourist the taxi fares seem to me at least very cheap.


Plavt.

[sputnik]

Some of them will even turn down a journey if it takes them to a part of London where they are unlikely to get a passenger on the return leg. Plavt.

Bangkok was a great learning curve for me on actually catching taxis. In general per taxi trip, about five taxi drivers refused to take me until one came along that did. The stock phrase was, "Get out. I not take you."