I'm a reporter from the Straits Times. We are currently looking into the issue of how taxi drivers are coping with the increased costs of driving your taxis.
For example, very expensive diesel, and your companies not giving you enough benefits. Are you thinking of switching to another taxi company, becoming part-time, or looking for reliefs because you don't want to OMO anymore.
Please reply to this thread or PM me if you would like to let me know your problems. You can also call me at 6319-6315 anytime you like, or drop me an e-mail at alvinlim@sph.com.sg ASAP.
I apologize for not consulting the founder of the STC before posting this. I hope all of you have a nice day, and I look forward to having a simple chat with some of you.
I paid by NETs and I use a Canon EOS 400D. Tio bo? Correct right! Nice chatting with you the other day.
Nice to meet you here as well. I am very impressed by your forum. I also read some posts and I realized how united and systematic some of you are, just by the way you go around solving your issues and problems. Good for you!
For this story that I am writing, we are hoping to look for some taxi uncles who are thinking of switching to other cab company because of cheaper diesel, more worth it, got advance booking, etc...
And also those taxi uncle who don't really want to switch because they are happy with their company! We want to hear from you also. We need about 50 taxi uncles total. It will be nice if you can help us!
P.S. If it's okay, maybe you can PM me your name and handphone number, I will not disturb you unnecessarily... because we all have litte time. Hope everybody can understand!
i gathered you're interested on the topic whether one wld jump ship to the other...frankly i see it as personal choice of taxi uncles...each coy has its own merits...therefore i see no gain to us as taxi drivers if i read your story...the only proud one wld be the coy who may report more hirers in view of cheaper diesel etc etc
please read the lips of our yeobt who category describe our predicament in driving a cab
also please go & do a research whether a taxi is a public transport provider...well a judge said so when he up sentence from one to 3 mths... a bully for hurting a cabby...please go & find out whether the authorities agree that taxis are public transport provider or not
another good story to write is whether taxis can pay ERP nominal fee instead of per entry basis in which paxs pays...causing a ride in cab very expensive
therefore, Alvin...do write something that we can hope to see a pot of gold at the end of d rainbow yea
regards
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If you are willing to admit faults, you have one less fault to admit.
To answer your question on whether a cabby will jump ship to another company is majority are doing so due to rising inflation of the fuel.
I was one of them, was driving a Toyota Camry Taxi that runs on CNG but decided to switch back to diesel despite the rise is because I have found out that it's not practical to have taxi to run on CNG unless we have lots of kiosk islandwide. It's time consuming consider the fact that every 200km we have to "run" all the way back to mandai or western part of Singapore -namely Jurong Island/Tuas for refuelling.
Hence my decision to give up driving a luxury taxi and downgrade to a korean vehicle instead.
On behalf of STC, I will be willing to assist you in your story interview. You can email me at camrylimo [at] gmail [dot] com.
Rgds, Mohd Alias aka CamryLimo
-- Edited by CamryLimo at 00:39, 2008-07-25
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No one understands the plight of being a taxi driver unless you had first hand experience - So STOP whining and start driving!
Jumping ship due to raising cost of diesel may be one of the factor since besides rental fuel cost can be as much as over 60% depending on which company you belong to and the distance that you cover in a full shift. It is indeed a significant part of a taxiuncle running cost. the market leader thus have taken the decison to include a subsidy to build and entice in order to maintain their fleet.
They know well about this situation thus they are also the price leader ( Bros, correct if I am wrong as I have not check rates of the other companies ). In any case these companies have all but make things very tough and complicated for a very simple business due to a simple decision make by our authority to let companies proxy to hold ownership of taxi licenses. Simple TaxiUncles need simple structures.
Point to noted is that diesel big chuck of our operating cost, in my opinion the company should not be making any profit out of it. Yet it is a part of their profit margin besides taxi rental and call charges.
Our Government too can assist by lowering diesel duty.
We are in a pond, there's no way we could get to an ocean going vessel.
Thank you for your interest and look forward to another interesting subject that can raise the profile of TaxiUncles least everytime time there is any fare adjustment or whatsoever TaxiUncles are the ones single out.
TaxiUncles also need to have a decent income to support their family in view of the current high inflation. TaxiUncles slog to drive about 10 hours for half a shift with full concentrate to provide a safe journey for their fares and I feel it is one of the most misunderstood lot.
