10/15/2015

Safety concerns in India over app taxis

India has taken tough stands on app taxis and is introducing new regulations to control the proliferation of unlicensed app taxis after rape cases appeared in the news. The Indian govt is concerned for the safety of their female passengers.

China too has revised taxi regulations but for different reasons, to regulate the app taxis to protect the traditional taxi trade. Singapore is also sounding out more changes in the pipeline to regulate app taxis to bring them in line to the licenced taxi drivers, in a way to protect the highly regulated but less than satisfactory taxi service.

The advent of app taxis is a natural development and a need for a more efficient service to favour the commuters. More app taxi operators will mean more competition and should also lead to better services, and maybe cheaper as well.

The safety of female passengers is something that is not being raised. Maybe this is the culture of crime free Singapore where passengers being raped by rogue taxi drivers is a rarity. Maybe all the foreigners landed here, and now can also drive app taxis will be more like the decent Singaporeans after drinking our newater.  So rape of female passengers or other crimes would be rare and if happened, acceptable and nothing to worry about.

Just wondering whether this kind of attitude is bravery, daft or cavalier, or I am just being too conservative, paranoid and not up to date with the new mindset, that taking taxis and being raped is part and parcel of life and the female victims must live with it.

Let’s see if the govt will introduce some measures in this line. The need for checks on criminal records and the registering of all taxi drivers could be the ways the govt is keeping tap and keeping crimes by taxi drivers in control. By allowing so much freedom for app taxi drivers to operate, would crimes by these new drivers be an issue or be too small to be significant enough to warrant any measures or concern by the govt?

What do you think?

4 comments:

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

@ stranger-danger, RB:

>> The safety of female passengers is something that is not being raised. <<

The drivers of the 2 Über trips I took recently were attractive women in their 20's. One was last week coming from Changi airport, and the other in KL a few days ago.

Women are more prone to sexual assault than men are. In places like India where "rape culture" is prevalent, one can expect its horrific manifestation in the service industry, where a (potential rapist) male-female dyad is commonplace.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

P.S. I told one Über driver that eventually there will be forms of state "regulation" for the ride-share/ app industry. This is bound to happen as usage becomes more "democratic".

Anonymous said...

Some foreign female taxi passengers have asked why Singapore taxis do not have a metal barrier between the taxi drivers and passengers in the cabin similar to taxicabs in other countries. They find certain taxi drivers here too overly “friendly” towards them, and thus having a metal barrier to keep drivers away would be very helpful.

The above is posted by a taxi commuter in TRE

Anonymous said...

/// Some foreign female taxi passengers have asked why Singapore taxis do not have a metal barrier between the taxi drivers and passengers in the cabin similar to taxicabs in other countries. ///
October 15, 2015 2:22 p.m.

Why ask us Singaporeans?
We are just " ****** Asians "

Go ask the Pro Alien Party Millionaires.
They represent 70% of us Singaporeans and 100% of them Aliens.