A Mind of My Own

It’s no longer safe to wait at the bus interchange. I was on my way home from the wedding dinner when this drunk, yet another dark skin, stared at me. I walked away from his line of stare. Not happy, he mumbled loudly and attempted to walk in front of me as close as possible, twice. I was contemplating to walk home when he tried to make his advances on me. Seriously, the police should patrol the dark places and even bus interchanges at night.

I didn’t take a taxi because there was a jam forming at Orchard Road and I doubt that they would magically appear unless upon booking. It used to be safe when I got home late at night in my area. Now? It’s no longer safe. I have to worry about drunks, perverts and lord knows what else. Oh, and disappearing taxi drivers.

Ah, our great transport minister has decided to create more surcharges and to increase the board on rates. How wonderful. Let’s see what other people are feeling about this hike.

Dejavu: Taxi Fares and What’s Not - $8.40 before the taxi had moved a centimetre.

Simply Jean: Taxi Hike -  ‘It’s a choice between $3 or nothing for drivers, so this will definitely influence their driving behaviour. We may head to more problems and complaints, in the end, if taxi drivers do avoid taxi stands along the fringe.’ That’s exactly what they are doing now, my dear MP Ong.

Decay on Net: You Guys Might as Well Go Rob a Bank - I don’t think they have to rob one but they have been robbing us all these while, haven’t they? Our money in the banks, right? We have to withdraw to pay.

All and Sundry Singapore: Attempting to Solve a Problem -  Actually, the problem had always been there. The taxis weren’t there, so a late night surcharge was given to attract but it still wasn’t enough and then there’s the favourite booking charges that they prefer, etc.

Mr Brown: Complain about Taxi Somemore -  I can’t think how better to put it than him. Yeah, I waited for 45 minutes for a taxi at Suntec City on a Saturday. It was after midnight too.

Oh my, so many “happy” customers out there. Comfort Delgro, you are very happy now, right? Serving so many customers who don’t want to pay for the higher fares but unable to do anything because they have no choice.

And my take? If I have a choice, I would be driving my own car without polluting the environment and without those horrible drivers who love to hog the roads, don’t know how to give way and those who love to kiss my car’s butt. Oh, not to forget, I don’t have to pay so much for fuel because it’s an environmental friendly car that doesn’t depend on petrol whose price is always on the rise.

What is the issue that we are trying to solve? Taxis to be available at all times since we have people willing to pay? Taxi drivers who choose passengers? Taxi drivers to take any passenger despite changing shift and the passenger is going the other direction? Or just covering the rising operating fees under the guise of solving disappearing taxis?

I take taxis because I have too many heavy stuff to carry and a trip on the train would be too horrifying indeed as I don’t want to be on Stomp captioned “Took up 4 seats just to put her bags because Can’t afford the taxi fares.”

That’ll be real nice, no?

I wanted to stay at home cozy yesterday. All was fine until ES SMS me, “Where are you?” My 1st mistake was to “At home.” My 2nd was to log online as demanded. My 3rd was to be good friends with ES and HF. Ok, that last part was a joke. Don’t kill me.

Eventually, after much cajoling online and extreme nudges, I got ready to meed HF as she would be taking a cab down. We had a trying time looking for places to have a drink. As in coffee, tea or Ice Blended Latte. However, most closed at 11pm and it was already 10.30pm. Note to self: Millenia Walk is a lousy place to have a quiet chat. The pub there don’t even serve hot drinks after 5pm.

We wanted to sit at Dreamer’s Live! Cafe but it was full house. What a pity. In the end, we took up a spot at McDonald’s in Suntec City. We can always depend on Good Ol’ Mac. It was midnight when we ended our thoughts of life with each other. The wait for the taxi was ridiculously long. There were so many people in the queue but all the taxi’s were On Call.

One taxi driver even blatantly stopped in the circle for someone to book a cab. The audacity! The queue where we were waiting, refused to call for a cab. The driver waited for about 3 minutes before we saw it light up with “On Call”. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the license plate.

Our total waiting time for the taxi was 45 minutes. We should thank LTA and our million-dollar MPs for promoting such good service. We have to wait for 45 minutes to take the “150% surcharge at midnight and Late Night surcharge” taxis. It would definitely be easier if we can just pay $6 on board fare cum $0.05 per 500m for the trip. I find it torturous to calculate the fares. Oh wait, our million-dollars MPs prefer formulas to show off their thorough thinking-ness.

Thanks for the raise. The surcharge for taxis based on locations that MP Seng Tan Thong is proposing now. He’s proposing that the surcharges be deployed to locations such as Raffles Place, shopping malls, pubs, etc. Wow. MP Seng is very thoughtful.

Thanks hor. Now I know that I have to pay for midnight charges, morning peak hour charges, weekend peak hour charges, booking charges, CBD charges, and other various charges of different names that I can’t possibly remember.

So, all these charges are supposed to do something? Like make those taxis appear out of thin air? Wow. The surcharges and other what-nots sure can do magic, ya? Did I mention that I spent $18 in the morning during peak hours just to get to work? Oh, I did.

Why not get rid of the charges and save us some headache instead. Just charge us for a boarding fare of $5 and the route charges. That’ll save a lot of calculating what time to take a taxi and where too.

Let’s make the formula less complicated, shall we? Get rid of the numerous charges because they obviously are not serving their purposes. So, just charge $5upon boarding and the route itself. You won’t have to crack your head on what sort of formula to use next. Neither do you need to think of various surcharge names either. Makes your job as MP so much easier and lighten your busy schedule, right?

[hijacked by WishbAne]