Taxi Fare

Has taxi fare increased unknowingly?

Last weekend, I called for a cab to Raffles City. The automated system assigned a Hyundai Sonata cab to pick me up. After boarding the cab, I thought, “Increase again?” The meter started at $2.70.

I went home boarding another typical Toyota cab, the meter started at $2.50. I wondered why there is a difference in both cab readings when they are from the same taxi company. Later I realized, the price different is due to the different car models. Makes me wonder even more…

If cab company wants to emphasize on service, please! In fact, I realized Hyundai cab drivers drive too recklessly because they are driving on an automatic gear and tend to exceed the speed limit unconsciously. As for Mercedes cab drivers, even worse, they think they are the high class drivers and often from their conversation I can sense that they belittle other fellow cab drivers. Once, a Mercedes cab driver told me that I was lucky to flag him down cause he usually pick up expats and tourists. As if I should really feel honored. *roll eyes and spit*

To us, cab commuters, all we need is a vehicle, which can bring us to our destinations safely. What makes Hyundai Sonata cab and Mercedes cab so special that their starting fares have to be different? I understand that the latter is a branded continental car, but commuters like me did not even request for such ‘high class’ cab in the very first place, sometimes the Mercedes cab with a small, indistinct ‘eco friendly leaf’ cleverly placed at the corner of the car door ‘invisible’ to us can start charging from $3.20. So is it fair for us to pay for something which we never even requested for?

Why I don’t think it is fair?

1. We did not request for special cabs. Anyway, in the very first place, don’t tell me Toyota is not good enough?
2. Be it Toyota or Mercedes, they are the same to us commuters.
3. Service is still the same, not as if they give us free drinks or there’s massage function in the seats.
4. More and more Sonata cabs make it hard for us to choose the cab we want to board. And remember, these cab drivers often drive slowly pass us, when we are standing by the road, making us feel guilty for saving 20cents.

Sometimes, when we are in a hurry, we have no choice but to flag these cabs, or to even board these cabs since we are in a cab queue. I have no qualms about paying additional 20cents to reach my destination but I just don’t feel it is right to have ‘double standard’ charge without being informed formally just because of the car models which we have no choice over. Very often, people like us only realized the charging when we board the cab. Ok, fine, if they say that they have the starting fares listed down on their website openly, but so, we are not so free to surf their website for charges, cause all we know is, where there is a fare hike, there will probably be lots of reports on the news. But I can say, using different car models to charge commuters differently is a CLEVER tactics. (Keep it up!) *applaude*

I don’t care if the extra money go to the cab company or the taxi drivers, because as a consumer, that is not my business. All I know is, cab fare has increased by another 20cents.