 |
Cabby John Joseph - Part Two
January 10, 2005
Hello and welcome to Cabby Chat, a series on the interesting experiences of taxi-drivers in Singapore. I’m Yvonne Gomez.
As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But there are certain people who think there is such a thing as a free cab ride. In Singapore, no taxi-driver is exempt from those who try to pull a fast one on them, so they can get away without having to pay their taxi fare.
Usually, some excuse or another is given to the taxi driver, who’s usually at the losing end because he’s already driven the passenger to his destination. So if a passenger says he has no money to pay him, there’s little he can do.
Some passengers, however, seem to make escaping paying fares their life’s work. Singaporean cabby John Joseph told me about one such person.
JJ: So far, somebody I picked up from Jurong West wanted to go to Yishun. That was around 11.30pm. He was chatting on the phone for some time. When we arrived at Yishun Ave 5, he told me to hold on for a while so he could go and get the money from his house to give to me. After he got out of the taxi, I came out of the taxi to look for him and I saw him running. That told me that something was wrong. I asked the person working at the nearby 7-Eleven why he was running. He told me that he always ran – he would always get out of the taxi and run away. He doesn’t pay.
What you’ve told me is something that I’ve heard from many taxi-drivers…not only these people asking you to wait while they get some money, but they do this so often that people around the area know this person, and know that he or she often does this. So usually, when someone gives you that excuse, do you already know that you’re not going to get paid? Or are there some genuine people who say that and they actually do come back and give you the money?
JJ: If they run, I’m sure they won’t come back to give you the money. This guy was not going up to a flat, but running towards the road, so I knew he wasn’t coming back to give the money, and I didn’t want to waste my time waiting for him.
Have people ever asked you to wait somewhere for a moment while they went off to get the money from an ATM or get some change? Have they genuinely come back to give you the money.
JJ: Yes, they have told me to hold on while they get money from the ATM machine. I’ve waited and they have come back to give me the money.
In your experience, when people say this, which scenario happens more often, where people come back to pay or just disappear?
JJ: They more often come back to give me money than not. Sometimes, after two or three o’clock after midnight, some people tell me they don’t have money to go home and ask me to take them home. I ask them what happened to their money and they say that they had lost their purse. I would ask for evidence and they would show me a police report. After I ask to see it and they let me see it, I’ll take them very happily. I never think about the fact that they have no money, but I thank God for giving me the chance to help somebody.
Mr Joseph also told me about a passenger who thought he was very smart and possibly tried to extort him.
JJ: Sometime back, somewhere in Geylang, a couple got into my taxi and the man dropped off somewhere on the way and the girl dropped off somewhere around Jalan Besar. The next day, he called me up in the afternoon to tell me that he was Inspector So-and-So and asked me to meet him at the Paya Lebar Police Station. I asked him why, and he asked me if I picked up a passenger from Geylang and I said yes. Then he just told me to meet him at the police station. I thought he must have noted my name from my tag, and traced my telephone number using the telephone book. I called up the Paya Lebar Police Station to check and they said there was no such Inspector there. So I just ignored him.
Did anything happen after that?
JJ: Nothing happened after that. I was waiting for another call from him but he never called back. That means he must have realised I knew he was up to no good.
|
|
edit2.gif)
