Originally posted by f1taxidriver:
My main concern with an employed cabby is not so much the terms
n conditions. It is more about 'moving goal posts'. Imagine they
now say you need 12 fares a day. Then when more people sign up,
they get cocky like grab or comfort, and roti prata say need 21
trips a day.
I would suggest to stay put. Grab shifted their goal posts
countless times from the start, and prata until chao ta liao. Are u
sure u want to start all over again with another new player?
Employed cabby is so moronic. As a 'free' cabby life is already
tough. Now become employed cabby and must follow rules and working
hours? People like bowah sure run road. We want happy happy stop
driving and become a tour guide for the deceased. Or suka suka go
jalan suka and see bak bak.
Talking about tour guide. How come the Taxi Tour Guide course
got scraapped? With TTG license, at least even if taxi become
driverless we still can use these taxis to guide small groups of
tourists. How come govt don't want to "level" this "playing field"
for taxi drivers? I remember when MBCC newly opened, there were 2
huge passenger liners landed, and there was a shortage of tour
guides. I am sure STB kept this information under wraps, because if
MIW know about it, they would see the need to revive the TTG to
ensure this is not repeated. Moreover, taxis doing tours will not
affect the rice bowl of those full fledged tour guides, because I
am sure they already were all fully booked way before the ships
landed. But those small groups. like couples or families, they
would prefer to come here and tour on their owm,
So why did STB get their way in refusing the Singapore Taxi
Academy to conduct a revised tour guide course that was
suitable for taxi drivers, but can allow UG to have a revised
vocational taxi license course? That day the demand for taxis
were really high. There was the case of a TD who picked up an angmo
couple, and they requested that he take them around to see
Singapore. He obliged and took them to Mt Faber. There at the top
where there are arrows pointing to different landmarks and
countries, he showed them the way to Bird Park. One tour guide saw
this and reported to an enforcement officer who was at the parking
area.
When the TD came back to his vehicle the officer approached the
TD and asked him who are the passengers. The TD told him the truth.
He asked the TD if he has a tour guide license and the TD replied
negative. He then told the TD that this is a grey area and that STB
is looking at ways to address the issue. He told te TD to go to the
Tourism building at Orchard Spring Lane to" discuss the matter with
his colleague" and see how they can "work things out together". The
TD accepted the appointment letter and thought nothing of it.
Guess what! The letter was an apppointment to attend Tourism
Court for TOUTING!
If the TD was touting, how come the officer didn't say it on the
spot but had to goreng another story to the TD? Was he afraid the
TD would not accept the letter if he told the truth? What is
touting? According to dictionary it means:
attempt to sell (something), typically by a direct or
persistent approach.
Was this a case of "direct or persistent approach"? Also, there
were 2 passengers in the taxi. If the TD had committed an offence,
shouldn't these be treated as witnesses, and their statements taken
to support the case? So why did the officer neglect to take
statements from the witnesses? Was it because he knew these
"witnesses" would not help to strengthen his case but weaken it
instead, because he knew the TD was telling te truth? Was this guy
just trying to trump up a case to frame the TD to make TDs look
bad, so that STB can have a strong case to disapprove of the TTG?
So, how about "levelling" the TTG 'playing field" as well, so TDs
can make up for the lost income they are encountering with the
introduction of PH taxis?
When the TD went to meet the officer's "colleague". he just
produced some documents and pointed to a section about
touting and that it has been decided that it is an offence, and
gave the TD a warning not to repeat the "offence". One of the
reasons he gave was that unlicensed tour guides tend to give "wrong
Information" to the tourists and this is bad for Singapore's
image.
Talking about giving "wrong Information". Are TDs the real
culprits? Or is it the FTs who come here, spend a few months, and
then think they are"qualified" to take their
friends/relatives around? I had encountered a number of
instances where these "giude" were feeding the wrong information to
their visitong friends/relatives. One classic case is of this guy
who picked his parents up from the airport, and was talking about
our transport system and mentioned the MRT. When his father asked
him what MRT stands for, he replied "Metro Railway Transport"!
So, are TDs the real culprits? We were born in this country and
we know the landmarks and transport systems and other information
far better than these FTs. So if the STB is really concerned about
"wrong information" being given to visitors, shouldn't they also be
arresting these "touts" as well? Or s the real reason they are
afraid their own tour guides would also experience what we are
experiencing now, which is, a loss of earnings?
What if we have another occasion where we have a similar
situation of shortage of tour guides? Are we going to have these
people going into the city, meet a fellow countryman who volunteers
to take them around, and then have these people returning home and
telling all their friends and neighbours about how efficient our
"Metro Railway Transport" is?Or better still, even find this
information printed on their tourist magazines when they write
about Singapore? It would be interesting to hear what the
minister or STB has to say about this.