Christmas Lift for Taximeter.

Today is Christmas day and yet I have to go to my Taxi company's workshop at 9.30pm to get my taximeter adjusted to the new fares which were recently announced and will take effect on 30th December. This is also a scheduled compulsory exercise and may take more than an hour for upgrading, adjustments and testings.

So, for the time being, I will continue to ply my trade till 9pm and with my Christmas spirits on a high, I sing to you,

"I Wish You A Merry Christmas, I Wish You A Merry Christmas, I Wish You A MERRY CHRISTMAS And A HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

The Wonder Of Christmas.

Its this time of year once again when Taxi Drivers collect their bonuses. Unlike workers in all other areas of employment, Taxi Drivers have to earn their bonuses through hard work and on such a joyous occasion. They will only be rewarded according to how much work they can perform, therefore, longer working hours mean bigger incomes and bonuses. No one will take any leave this day, instead they will go all out to try to earn as much as they can because this opportunity can only happen on Christmas eve.

To all my friends, my faithful followers and viewers, I would like to wish each and every one of you

"A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!"

"He asked for it what!"

Hail a Comfort or a SMRT taxi and you know their metered fare have already increased accordingly, but each time, whenever I ask my passengers if they had felt any such increase in their fares riding these cabs, they would simply say "Its about the same, not much difference leh".
There are one or two passengers who would ask me why I had to increase the taxi fares and when I tell them its not my doing, its the Taxi company that decides and makes the decision, they just shrugged their heads and say, "Ahh no lah, you people are the ones who put pressure on your Companies to demand for an increase all the time, you think we are fools ah".
This was the particular passenger whom I was unfortunate to have fetched yesterday evening from Sim's Drive and he asked to go to Tampines Street 34. I thought he was trying to be funny or maybe try to irritate me so as to get me involved in having a stupid argument with him or simply just to annoy me, but, unfortunately for him, I was quite prepared for his kind of nonsense from the way he behaved and the manner and style in which he made that remark and so, I replied "Of course what, you mean to tell me you don't expect any bonus from your Boss even when his Company is doing very well and at the end of the year, expect no bonus nor even a small salary increase from his Company meh? and if there is none, don't tell me you just sit and keep quiet and don't even ask???". to which he became an instant 'deaf-mute' and remain quiet throughout the journey.
This guy tried to be funny by putting the blame on me for the Fare Hikes, but he happened to bark up the wrong cabbie who would purposely hit back.
Sometimes I get 'tickled' when I take them on. You see, its usually these irritating minority group of passengers who hardly use taxis, maybe only once in a while who grumbles most and likes to make unreasonable and baseless remarks that can rile you. I would normally try not to engage in any arguments or even have casual conversations with these type of commuters by keeping 'mum' or just simply say "Ya" to anything he or she says.

Christmas Brings Peace and Goodwill to All Singaporeans.

At last Fare Hikes apply to all taxis on January 3rd 2012, except for the Prime fleet who have yet to make a decision. Anyway, I have been making private surveys from my passengers after a week of adjusted fares if they have previously been on board Comfort Taxis and from results that I have gathered, I conclude that the Fare Hikes are not ridiculous nor causing great alarms and I feel that commuters are not likely to make any huge complaints, and rides on all taxis will be accepted quietly and once again back to normalcy.
Year 2012 will usher in a new kind of taxi service, this time on "water". There will only be two routes, one starting from Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel (near Zouk) to Marina Barrage and the other from Rivergate, start near Riverview Hotel ending at the Barrage. There will be about 13 stops on both routes with intervals of between 10 to 15 minutes and fares will most likely be from $3.00 to $4.00 at most. This will be an interesting and exciting form of transportation in the near future.
Presently there are 2 other waterway services but they are mainly for sight seeing trips for tourists being provided by Singapore River Cruise and the Duck and Hippo companies.
Second exciting news is about having another new radio station, the FM92.0 which will only cater to Women and Family to start off late next year. This new one will bring all together a total of 19 Radio Stations in Singapore. These two new implementations are Christmas Gifts for citizens of Singapore. Cheers!

Cold and Rainy Days.

Its raining again, yes this time of the year is always much cooler and here are some of the common requests that I get from passengers, "Uncle, can bring down the air-con?" ("Bring down?"), "Uncle, brrrrrr, very cold, can please close or not?", "Uncle, I am not feeling well, don't mind put smaller can?, thank you", "Wah, your taxi so cold cannot tahan", "Uncle, can open window or not, too cold". These are a few 'cute' and very Singaporean style of requests for me to lower the air-con thermo or they say "Please switch off air-con, too cold" abrupt and straight to the point.
In all my years as a cabbie, I have yet to hear from tourists a call to lower my taxi air-con. It is quite unusual but I think, they (tourists) are not sure if it is polite or not and therefore hesitate and restrain from making such requests. But there are times, through 'body language' I can more or less tell if they are feeling a bit cold and I would just say "Is my air-con too cold?", and the responses I get are always "Yes, thank you".
During very heavy rainy days, the only setback and irritation that annoys me, are from those passengers (not many, but there a few) who in their hurry to board my cab, would just simply put their wet umbrellas on the seat without any second thoughts. There are many times I try to avoid stopping for passengers with umbrellas over their heads on rainy days but till today, I would still reluctantly stop and fetch them. 

Christmas Tidings.

Christmas is just around the corner, in fact, exactly one week from now. This year's Christmas light-up along the famous Orchard Road strip is not continuous enough I think, as it ends abruptly near Dhoby Ghaut instead of all the way right up to Suntec City like in previous years, and therefore the lightings and decorations have made me feel as though the works are not fully completed yet.
This popular stretch of road is always first to bring in Christmas cheers, the kind of atmosphere which starts the celebration mood going, bringing in huge crowds of visitors, both local and foreign, with thousands of shoppers flooding shopping centres displaying big holiday discounts and fantastic promotions of all kinds of goodies that you can think of.
This year's colour theme of glittering blue, white and silver looks great, very lively and refreshing. I enjoy and especially love driving around this area during the night, soaking in the beautiful decorations, display of so many christmas trees, colourful lightings, people activities such as carollers, buskers performances and I am also at the same time quite oblivious to all the chaotic traffic jams that I get stucked in.
The recent taxi fare hikes have not really dampened the Christmas festive mood as evidenced by the usual long queues of commuters, and the unpopular fare hike issues have also suddenly been overshadowed by the latest continuous MRT train breakdowns, causing huge disruptions and chaos during the past few days.
Yes, this Christmas has indeed brought in an unexpected 'Tidings of the Third Kind'.

Eavesdropping.

I must admit, Taxi Drivers are truly unavoidable legal eavesdroppers. When my passengers start to quarrel among themselves, I have totally no control and no choice whatsoever but to remain quiet, with a listening ear and become a third party witness to the many different types of quarrels imaginable over the years. Quarrels that happen in my cab are usually between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, lovers and also among siblings. Most quarrels are the subdued types, it starts with short aggressive remarks with harsh words, retorts, blurted out in stern but sober tones, sometimes they may sound as though they were whispering yet loud enough, very audible over very small petty issues.
In some cases, angry and ugly arguments over infidelity are spewed out unashamedly, exposing the actions of the guilty party concerned, exactly like happenings in True Life stories that we might have read or have come across in our lives before, and they can be quite interesting listening to the facts and details of infidelities.
As a cab driver, I have always maintained a 'mind your own business' attitude, but sometimes when I feel things are getting a bit out of hand, I would gently ask them if I should make a left or right turn or if I should take this or that road which usually puts a sudden halt to their heated arguments and it does help to cool down the heat somewhat.
Quarrels between boyfriends, girlfriends and lovers are slightly different. They would start by speaking angry words and then stop, a short while later, a few more unhappy words and then silence. I can sometimes sense the kind of miserable feelings the couples maybe going through with a few spoken words off and on followed by total silence till they reach their destinations.

'OT' For Taxi Drivers.

When train services are disrupted like what happened last Thursday, taxis become the most sought after alternative public transport service. When this sudden need for them occurs at the same time, great difficulties will be experienced by the general public in trying to secure its services. There will be long queues of anxious commuters everywhere, all waiting to catch a cab at the same time, and this inevitably give rise to anger and frustrations when vacant taxis don't seem to exist and the rest are either fully occupied or showing 'On Call' signs. Its times like this when taxi drivers work overtime to earn extra income by ferrying commuters non-stop. This type of unforeseen disruptions are extremely rare.
Of course, we Taxi Drivers regret such train breakdowns and disruptions which can be chaotic and cause great difficulties and hardship to commuters but it has also ironically benefited us in terms of an increase in our income through a greater demand for taxis.  

Twice Into Massive Traffic Jams.

After my passenger alighted at Waterloo Street at 9.00pm last night, I proceeded along Stamford Road keeping to my left whilst following behind a bus. And not very far from the National Museum, traffic in front of me was hardly moving forward. I tried desperately to filter out of my lane but could not as all other vehicles on my right were at a standstill. For a moment, I thought a very serious accident must have occurred ahead of me to cause such a jam. Slow and steadily, I inched forward, little by little and half an hour later, I could tell I was near the junction of Stamford Road and Fort Canning Road, but there were no signs to indicate that there had been any serious accidents at all. I finally managed to squeeze out through an opening on my right and lucky for me there was a gap at the junction ahead which allowed me to turn left into Fort Canning Road. Being inquisitive, I turned my vehicle to the right and drove straight into the YMCA covered carpark. Parked at a parking lot, I then took a lift to the coffee house on the 3rd level, ordered a cup of coffee and sat by the window overlooking Stamford Road to find that the whole area was clogged up with stationary buses and other vehicles. I asked the Chef who was standing near me if he knew what was going on and he told me that the MRT trains had broken down at Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station.
It was already 10.15pm when I decided to leave after having my coffee and finished eating an apple pie. I exited through Fort Canning Road and made my way towards Clarke Quay to find a very, very long passenger queue at the Liang Court taxi stand. A young Malay lady boarded my taxi and asked to go to Hougang Street 51, saying she had been waiting for a taxi for the past 30 minutes already. I told her about the heavy traffic jams nearby as I drove towards the CTE heading for Hougang.
As soon as I drove into the CTE, I found myself engulfed again in a massive traffic jam. all the way from near Cuppage Plaza up to Ang Mo Kio Avenue One which eventually took me exactly one hour to reach Hougang Street 51.
Throughout the whole journey, my lady passenger sat quietly, calmly playing some computer game on her mobile phone and was not at all perturbed by the crawling traffic all around us. I was very relieved when we finally reached her destination. My legs ached and I was truly "shagged". 

Big "Hoo-Ha" Over Fare Hikes.

It is not a ridiculous taxi fare increase as far as regular commuters are concern, and I don't see any drastic change in taxi ridership patterns across the island. From some direct accounts of on the spot surveys carried out yesterday in respect of the fare hikes from commuters, results have shown that the increases are very minimal and hardly felt. Anyhow, it is still too early to gauge the impact of the hikes but Comfort Taxis having the largest taxi fleet on the road is good enough testing ground to finding out the general responses from commuters even from the very first day of its effectiveness, and from what we hear over live interviews on television, the newspapers and news online, I guess its not going to be a long drawn subject of unhappiness from the general public but the usual waiting time and the unending complaints will definitely continue to persist.
People use taxis when they need them whether there is any increase or not. As it is, the cost of living and the high diesel price have made it most difficult to earn a living. Taxi drivers work very long hours, as much as 12 to 13 hours a day and its no joke, with no CPF contributions, no annual leaves and worst of all, not even allowed to fall sick at all, the life of a Taxi Driver is indeed tough. Therefore, a tiny increase in taxi fares to help taxi drivers maintain a decent livelihood, have a better income opportunity, should not make it sound like a 'life and death' issue, cause great unhappiness or even having thoughts of boycotting, afterall, it has been 5 years since the last fare hike exercise in 2007.