Monday, December 03, 2007 Taxi Problem Taxi Problem
Mr. Han Songguang, a researcher with the Geography Dept of National University of Singapore, should be commended for his thorough and objective analysis of ¡°The Taxi Situation¡± which appeared in The Straits Times on 21 Nov 2007.
Famous blogger, Mr. Alex Au has attributed 3 ills of Singapore to the taxi problem namely, elitism, over-regulation and protection of government-linked companies.
I think there is another factor; it is the government¡¯s intentional control of the wages of Singapore workers and in this case, the takings of the taxi drivers.
After so many years of fare regulating the government should have a very good idea of how much the cabbies can make at any given fare rates. It probably thinks that as non-elite worker, taxi drivers have to put in at least 12 hours everyday if they want to earn more than $1,500 per month.
This control of wages is obviously for political reasons which sadly can even override morality and social responsibility.
Several years ago, there was a disturbing increase in road accidents involving taxi drivers and PTC (Public Transport Council) was tasked to look into it. PTC actually found that the main reason for the accidents was due to driver fatigue. Cabbies have to drive long hours to make ends meet and that impaired their driving performance. Despite PTC findings, the government stubbornly refused to help increase the cabbies¡¯ takings and chose to impose fine on taxi companies to check accident rates. The findings of PTC were of course not made public until several years later.
As cabbies still need to put in long hours to earn a decent income, can we blame them for trying to work smart to maximize their earnings? Unfortunately this has only resulted in bad press for them!
