On New Year's Eve, taxi driver Tan Pin Lin started his shift at
5 p.m. with 10 plastic bags, boxes of tissue paper and a prayer
that no one would puke in his cab after a night of partying.
As he wrapped up his shift at 5 a.m. yesterday, he counted himself
fortunate: Only one passenger had vomited.
He said in Mandarin: "I think I'm very lucky that the vomiting one
was my last fare. If not, I would have had to take time out to
clean the taxi, lose earnings and then try to find passengers who
don't mind the smell."
Taxi drivers regularly have to deal with drunken passengers who
refuse to compensate them for the cost of cleaning up after making
a mess in the vehicles.
Although some embarrassed passengers do pay up, cabbies say others
are too drunk to do so, or simply refuse to pay the 20 Singapore
dollars (US$15.4) to get the taxi cleaned.
Besides being set back 20 Singapore dollars every time it happens,
the cabbies also stand to lose the 30 to 50 Singapore dollars they
would have earned had they been out driving instead of being stuck
in a petrol station washing bay.
The cost of picking up a drunken passenger who pukes is thus at
least 50 Singapore dollars.
The number of passengers who have had too much to drink doubles
during the December to February festive season, a Straits Times
poll of 50 cabbies found.
Eric Low, 41, who drives the 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. shift seven days a
week, said he picks up perhaps three vomiting passengers in a
normal month, and up to four a week during the Christmas and New
Year period.
Cabbies say that as more nightspots open, the number of "hurling"
passengers can only go up.
They say that when they have a passenger who has thrown up on
board, the standard practice is to ask for a flat payment of 10 to
20 Singapore dollars - on top of the fare - depending on how bad
the mess is.
Faisal Nordin, 47, said: "If they throw up mostly in a plastic bag
and just some gets on the mat, I ask for 10 Singapore dollars and
take an hour off to clean up my taxi at the nearest coffee
shop.
"But sometimes, the whole seat is covered with vomit and it's so
disgusting that even after two hours of cleaning, the smell is so
strong no one will take my cab."
If this happens, especially early in a shift, cabbies stand to lose
up to 300 Singapore dollars for the rest of the night.
They are not protected by any regulation that entitles them to
compensation from their passengers.
Hong Chin Chye, 60, who has been a cabby for more than 20 years,
said: "I ask nicely a few times, but if they say no, I can't do
anything. The most I can do is to ask for their particulars and
write a letter to them the next day."
The legal route is to file a claim against the passenger at the
small claims court. If violence or assault is involved, cabbies can
go to the police.
The Straits Times understands that the Land Transport Authority
regulates taxis' operating standards but leaves such issues for cab
companies to sort out.
ComfortDelGro, Singapore's biggest cab operator with a fleet of
about 15,000 taxis, said it does not have a policy on compensation,
but it does offer its cabbies free cleanups at its workshops.
However, the cabbies said they would rather head to the nearest
petrol kiosk for a cleanup than to drive to a workshop.
ComfortDelGro's spokesman said there were 50 such cases reported
last year.
Prime Taxi general manager Eric Ang said the company would write up
to three letters to the passenger requesting compensation, but it
cannot do much else unless the cabby decides to sue the
passenger.
Of the 50 cabbies surveyed, 45 were in favour of a "vomit
surcharge."
R. Saravanan, 40, said: 'These passengers put us in a difficult
position. If we pick them up, we get a mess. If we don't, they take
down our license plate numbers and report us for avoiding
them.
"If there's a surcharge, they may be more careful and puke into a
bag instead."
Marketing manager Claris Ang, 34, threw up in a cab on New Year's
Eve after a night of drinking at Clarke Quay.
She apologized and paid the cabby 20 Singapore dollars to get his
taxi cleaned.
She said yesterday: "I felt very bad seeing the taxi uncle's face
fall after I threw up. The smell was so bad he nearly vomited
himself, so the least I could do was to pay up, since he'd probably
have trouble getting passengers after me."
