Cabbies not allowed to offload passengers

oxford mushroom SG

I REFER to Mr Chew Boon Keong's letter, 'Taxi service: Surcharge is king, not passenger' (ST, Nov 27).
Mr Chew and other readers may like to know that taxi drivers have no right to offload passengers before taking them to their destination, when the taxi driver receives a call booking.

Under the Road Traffic (Public Service Vehicles) Rules, it is an offence for any taxi driver to terminate the hiring of a taxi or require a passenger to alight before the passenger is conveyed to his destination.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) takes a serious view of such offences and will take action against the offenders. However, we need the assistance and cooperation of passengers.

We request Mr Chew to provide us with the taxi registration number (with prefix and suffix) and date and time of incident so that we can investigate the matter. Passengers who encounter similar experiences should do likewise to help us curb this errant practice by taxi drivers.

Our number is 1800-CALL LTA (1800-2255 582).

Naleeza Ebrahim (Ms)
Deputy Director, Media Relations
Land Transport Authority

(Straits Times 5 Dec)

bryanseb SG

so?

buses_galore SG

You wrote that letter?

FireIce SG

i kena a few times.....
when i oredi sitting in the cab liao the uncle say, xiao jie, paiseh hor, just confirm one call.....can u take another cab?
i say no....and i refused to get outta the cab....
then they lan lan call the call centre to cancel....

but got some drivers quite nice lah, they auto call back to cancel the job.....even apologise to me (cos have to stop a while or drive slow to make the call)
complaining the system slow.....bid liao damn long no respond or wat....tot din get the job.....then pick up from roadside liao then get the booking......

SBS9889U SG

Last time got 1 cabby as me if i going to 1 or 2 location when im onboard then i say 1 and ask him why he ask , then he say later i want to go 2 locations dint tell him earlier then he press booking liao then cancel booking not good for his record

Poolman SG

From a cabby's perspective ........ for me , i will call my control centre , tell them to re-assign another taxi for the booking customer , and proceed with this customer whom i stopped for .

Reason ? Since i chose to stop for this customer , then i should chose to cancel the booking job , no hassle !!! No need any further explanation to anyone !

Again for me ..... that's why i chose to treat customer "transparent" whenever there is many bookings , and again , if i chose to take booking , then flagging for taxis customer will be treated"transparent" .... sadly , but it's true , this is one of our survivor code !

Most cabbies would stop for u if road ahead is jam , traffic jam , cos someone would pay for the meter , the customer pay , not us !

Poolman SG

LTA's set a standard for booking , and company encourage us to take booking , we take bookings for $$$ .

If one taxi company failed it's standard for booking , they will be fined !!!

For a CitCab cabby , if he rejected 3 bookings , he will be "suspended" for 24 hrs from taking further booking .

For a Comfort Cabby , if he rejected 3 bookings , he will be "suspended" 1 hour from the 3rd booking .

Kena suspend no joke , less revenue .

105090 SG

how to reject? when the monitor flash the booking and you ignore, then its call Reject? then if there many bookings pop up like the new IKEA/Courts?

or is there a Reject Button?

FireIce SG

tt does not encourage the cabbies to ALL wait for bookings and play punk dun pick up from roadside...........

i tink this is something the cab companies must work on to change the mindset of the cabbies........

SBS9889U SG

What happen if during heavy rain someone book taxi at Thomson Rd then you reject? is it considered 1 reject than 2 more suspend? Laughing

iveco SG

I think the cabby should only accept the booking if it is convenient for them. Like when they are dropping off a passenger in the same area as the one who made the booking.