An upset taxi driver took Facebook to express his dissatisfaction over a customer that abuses the free 5 minutes waiting time. Earlier today, a Facebook user Jason Tan wrote on the Singapore Taxi Facebook group about how he took a fare on JuzGrab at 2.20am to pick up a couple and was made to wait three to four minutes upon his arrival.
He wrote, “Please do not treat the 5 mins JG/GT waiting time as an entitlement or some kind of inalienable right. It is not. If every pax makes me wait 4 minutes, if I have 20 paxs in a single day, that is 1 hour 20 minutes lost and unpaid. Please understand.”
Since the app gives users an allowance of 5 minutes free waiting time, the driver didn’t cancel the booking and calmly told the passengers to arrive timely the next time they book a taxi, once they boarded the vehicle. However, the passenger allegedly gave a reply that shocked the driver.
“The young girl then said, aren’t you guys supposed to wait up to 4.99 minutes for us? I almost stopped the car out of revulsion to that comment and my first instinct was to tell them to get out and book another ride. I explained that this 4.99 minutes window is not an entitlement..,” he wrote.
According to the driver, the only reason he posted this incident on his Facebook page is to inform users that the 5 minutes allowance is not an entitlement and they should only book when they are fully ready.
The post garnered many likes and comments with many supporting the taxi driver. A lot of them suggest that the driver shouldn’t wait for the passenger and should have just left them behind.
However, there are a lot of others who argue that there is nothing wrong in waiting for a short while. One user commented that as a passenger, he had to wait for a longer time and don’t get any money or discount in return, as compared to taxi drivers who actually get S$4 if they wait more than 5 minutes.
However, his comment didn’t go down too well with others, especially taxi drivers and it sparked a heated argument. One user named Jimmy Lim retaliated and said the app is telling him the wrong arrival time of the driver and he should instead call the driver directly to ask for his estimated time of arrival (ETA), rather than to trust the app.
Other users also pointed out that taxi drivers don’t announce how long passengers should wait if they are reaching late for the pick-up.
Although the original post was meant to just remind people that they shouldn’t take the free 5 minutes waiting time for granted, but it led to various arguments among users. Jason commented again saying that many people misunderstood his post and he just thinks that “the sense of entitlement is wrong.”
