If you interact with humans frequently, you’ll soon learn one thing: sometimes, we are not pleasant creatures.
Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the minimisation of social interaction, most of us have forgotten how awful some people can be.
Unfortunately for cabbies and private-hire car drivers, they have to deal with humans on a daily basis. Shudder.
A Difficult Passenger
An aggrieved Grab driver took to social media recently to air his grievances over an unpleasant encounter with a rude passenger.
He detailed the incident in a Facebook post on Saturday (10 Apr):
The driver, Teckwee Ng, said he’s been a private-hire car driver for 1.5 years, and he has been working the midnight shift.
“I have met my fair share of ridiculous people but nothing as noteworthy as this,” he said.
It all started when Ng picked up a female Chinese passenger at Park Royal Collection Marina Bay at around 12:19am on 28 Mar.
She was heading to to Dunman Regency on 485 Dunman Road.
The woman, who Ng said was in her 20s, was “quiet and nice” throughout the ride, like most passengers.
Upon reaching her destination, the woman called someone on her phone, and Ng presumed it was someone who would pay the fare for her in cash, as that has happened before.
The man told the woman he was standing by 487 Dunman Road, so Ng drove to that location.
The man then walked up to Ng’s car, got in, and asked the woman to “move in a little”.
Since they had already reached the woman’s location, Ng reminded the pair that they’d have to make a new booking if they wished to travel to another location, because he had already accepted another booking.
The man ignored this suggestion and told Ng to “go straight” before continuing his conversation with the woman.
“So I complied (to a small extent) thinking that maybe he is lazy to walk the few meters towards the traffic light or something”, Ng said.
“I drove around 30 meters towards the traffic light and stopped 10 meters away from the traffic light so as to not make an illegal drop off.”
But when the man then asked Ng to turn left, he knew the pair’s intended location wasn’t nearby.
So, he reminded the man to make another booking if he intended to travel to a different location.
“My next passenger is waiting for me,” Ng said. “$17.30, please.”
The man then brandished a stack of S$50 and S$100 notes—which Ng suspected was a display of wealth.
Ng accepted a single $50 note, and gathered his change.
The story should have ended there, but then, for some unknown reason, expletives started pouring out of the man’s mouth.
Man Calls Driver “Beggar” & “Bastard”
When Ng tried to hand the man his change, he rejected it and went on a vulgarity-laden rant instead, insulting Ng’s mother while pointing a finger in his face.
“Oi, you want scold people you scold people, scold people mother for what?” Ng said in response.
“When I tell you to go straight it means go straight, why are you arguing so much?” the man replied.
The man allegedly said that it wouldn’t be “good” for his female companion if his four sons spotted them together “at this hour”. Hence, he didn’t want to get off in front of his house.
Ng then tried to explain to the man that unlike a metered taxi, he could not change the location unless it was changed on the app.
“We drivers are humans too, how could you scold someone else’s mother just like that?” Ng responded in shock.
But instead of calming down and getting out of the car, the passenger then apparently said this:
“All of you chauffeurs are beggars. All of you are bastards. Customer is king, you have to listen to whatever we command. Which company are you from? Do you want me to make your company go bankrupt?” the passenger said.
Ng simply laughed and responded: You want to bankrupt my company? Go ahead if you want lor”.
P.S. The company in question is Grab, by the way, which definitely doesn’t look like it’s going to go bankrupt soon.
Threatens to Call “Inspector” Son to Detain Him
Verbal abuse wasn’t enough for the rude passenger, as he then threatened to bring Ng down to the police station where his son is supposedly working as an “inspector”.
Ng thought about physically dragging the man out of the car, but instead just told the woman to take his change.
To this, the man very politely told the woman something along the lines of: don’t you dare take it—if you dare take the change I’ll break your arms; and if you alight from the car, I’ll break your legs.
What the heck is wrong with this guy?
The man finally got out of Ng’s car but refused to accept Ng’s “chump change”.
Still Ended Up Being Most Profitable Day of the Week
Ng ended his shift after the incident because he was “too pissed to drive safely”.
Despite that, it was still the most profitable day of the week for him.
Nice.
Ng is still puzzled by the man’s behaviour (and so are we), and unsure what prompted the outburst. He also noted that the man’s supposed wealth means nothing if he can’t display basic human decency.
“No matter how rich you are, people like you can never buy class,” he said.
Many netizens responded to Ng’s Facebook post with equal anger, suggesting that he should contact the police if he were to meet such a passenger again in the future. Several netizens also praised Ng’s patience and were impressed with the cool manner he used to deal with the rude man.
Feature Image: Facebook (Teckwee Ng)