{"id":2450,"date":"2009-02-16T03:27:48","date_gmt":"2009-02-15T19:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=2450"},"modified":"2009-02-16T03:27:48","modified_gmt":"2009-02-15T19:27:48","slug":"taxi-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/02\/16\/taxi-drivers\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxi drivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-taxi\" If you followed the news here, you\u2019d be forgiven in thinking that the cab services in Singapore are a huge mess. I mean, you get reports of drivers who drive like their adrenaline button is stuck on high, drivers who refuse to pick up passengers, drivers who heckle their passengers and so on. Just do a search like this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t take cabs too often; perhaps just once or twice a week. Still, it\u2019s funny, because my experiences taking cabs in Singapore have so far been all positive. Ok, many drivers don\u2019t yak much, but that\u2019s fine with me and in this part of the world, not chatting with the passenger isn\u2019t considered impolite.<\/p>\n

Two recent conversations I had while in a cab come to mind. On the first occasion last Tuesday when I had to visit Sungei Gedong camp for my biannual FFI check-up. This camp is, for those of us in the know, in one of the most ulu parts of Singapore. Fortunately, the ride was a pleasant one that made the 25 minute ride pleasant. The driver was a middle-aged Chinese gentleman, and we yakked about further education in Singapore. He has two children, both of whom are doing pretty well (his daughter has graduated in NTU and is in the banking sector, and his son also in NTU is doing an overseas student attachment in Europe).<\/p>\n

The second occasion occurred late last week when Ling was working late in school so I headed home from work on my own. The cab driver yakked about the cab driving scene in Singapore, and shared about his experiences as a newbie driver 2 years ago. His gripe? Too many cab drivers in Singapore now, and competition\u2019s really stiff. Last year on a good day he could take home between $3K to $4K, but these days he\u2019s lucky to get the first figure.<\/p>\n

And he likes Orchard Towers. He remarked candidly that the Ang Mohs who go there are there only because they are picking girls up for their, well, thing, and it\u2019s quick trips in and out for him. And experienced drivers know where all the sweet spots are. They know what time schools, Universities and Polytechnic classes end, which are the RT camps in Singapore and even what time their training sessions end LOL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you followed the news here, you\u2019d be forgiven in thinking that the cab services in Singapore are a huge mess. I mean, you get reports of drivers who drive like their adrenaline button is stuck on high, drivers who<\/p>\n

Read More Taxi drivers<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-letters","wpcat-12-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}