Taxi drivers in Singapore
I have been known to say that taxi drivers are one of the three types of people the same the world over.
On my recently-concluded trip to Singapore, I experienced one story and heard another.
The bad: My mother-in-law had to bring a wheelchair from her landed property (stand-alone house) to my grandmother-in-law's flat. She stood in the pouring rain for twenty minutes, flagging taxis down only to watch them speed off when the drivers saw the wheelchair. Apparently the Chinese taxi drivers in Singapore don't like to get wet. A Malay driver finally took her fare.
The good: My wife left her cell phone in a taxi. We forgot the taxi color (there are four major taxi companies in Singapore, with different colors for their cabs), and I guessed blue - wrong. Blue's dispatcher sent out a bulletin but no one responded. Meanwhile, I called the cell phone, and so did the aunt that travelled part of the way with us. She finally reached the driver, who verified her identity (where did I pick you up? where did I drop you off? who did you travel with?) and then agreed to meet her where he had dropped her off - at no charge. The driver went out of his way to promptly return the cell phone. My aunt made sure to contact his taxi company and compliment him.