troublesome and waste of time....

There was this guy, a caucasian, looks to be in his fifties, whom I picked up along Orchard Road near Centrepoint taxi stand one night and he wanted to go to Sixth Avenue. As soon as he boarded my cab, he immediately fell asleep lying down across the back seat. I thought he must be very tired and anyway Sixth Avenue is not that faraway. It was around 11.30pm. As I drove, I could hear his loud snores along the way. I took a look behind when I stopped at a red light traffic junction near Balmoral Road, and found him curled up in deep sleep. I continued on my journey till I reached Sixth Avenue, then called out "Hello Mister, wake up, we are here!" No response , and so I stopped my vehicle by the side of the road, switched on the centre lights and called him again. He did not even budge a bit. After calling out loud numerous times in an effort to wake him up failed, I decided to drive towards the nearest Police Post along Bukit Timah Road to seek assistance from the police.

As taxi drivers, we are not allowed to do our own body search, and so, after parking my cab just outside the station, two uniformed police officers began to call him and eventually hauled him up in a sitting position. The passenger sleepily said "Okay" and again laid down in the same fashion. After quite a while, the police officers managed to wake him up, asked where he intended to go. He said to Sixth Avenue but not the exact location. It was already half an hour spent and still the police could not gauge a proper answer from him. It was then that I decided to just ask the police to get $10/- from him as a token for my troubles. At the same time, I told them that I do not wish to ferry him again, and wanted to leave. The kind officers obliged, hauled the guy into the station to let him rest there, collected and gave me the money I asked. I thanked them and left.

It was already 12.30am and I had already wasted an hour or so, including loss of income. I decided to retire after going to a car wash to clean up and wash the vehicle as usual and drive straight home after that. This sort of incidents are quite common, and there is nothing much we can do except to get help from the police.