KUALA LUMPUR: Taxi drivers are in the news for the wrong reasons, no thanks to some who insulted Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad during a recent dialogue session in Langkawi.
The public has been so incensed by the cabbies’ rudeness, that many Netizens have condemned them as “scammers and extortionists”, joining former Minister Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin’s call for the taxi service to be terminated.
Singers Adibah Noor and Nurul Wahab both shared their experiences with cabbies on Twitter recently.
While Nurul had a rather negative perception of them, Adibah revealed that polite and customer-friendly ones were aplenty, too.
Nurul said her expatriate businessman husband Eric Depp was always mistaken as a tourist by cabbies, and revealed that drivers of blue and red taxis in their neighbourhood, Bukit Ceylon, never followed their meters.
“From Suria KLCC to our house in Jalan Ceylon, RM30. Blue taxi, meter not used. Red taxi from Jalan Bukit Bintang to Jalan Ceylon, RM15, again meter not used. The drivers scold us if we point that out to them,” she tweeted.
Netizen Hendra sympathised with her and said: “These blue and red cab drivers think we consumers are living in the 1990s. They continue to bully us. There are more options now. They can go if they don’t change their mentality.”
Adibah said that during her recent visit to Kota Kinabalu, she had to choose between a Grab driver who charged RM4 for a journey from Sutra Harbour Hotel to Imago Mall, and a taxi driver who charged RM15 for the same journey.
“The cab driver did not use a meter, so I told him I’d rather use Grab as it is cheaper. He replied, okay then, use Grab,” tweeted Adibah, adding that the cab driver was polite all the way.
Netizen Panda said: “Good that you met a polite cabbie. I fear even the good ones will succumb to the unhealthy culture of not using meters.”
Adibah replied: “I really empathise with the good cabbies.”