Tada passenger wants to alight halfway after driver tells her not to eat in car: 'I don't like your attitude'
A Tada passenger didn't like the way the private-hire driver asked her not to eat in his car and wanted to be dropped off before reaching her destination.
Stomper RL, who was the driver, had picked up the woman at The Metropolis in Buona Vista at 5.13pm on July 15 and was driving her to a condo in Bukit Timah.
He recounted: "I told her in a firm tone, 'Miss, please don't eat in my car, thank you.'
"Then she said okay and mumbled something which I did not catch.
"Halfway through, she said she didn't like my attitude and requested to be dropped off at a bus stop."
The Stomper shared dashcam footage of the incident where he can be heard asking the passenger: "So you want to cancel the trip?"
The passenger, who spoke with a foreign accent, replied: "I do not like your attitude. You could've asked nicely."
The driver said: "No, I said thank you."
She said: "I do not appreciate the way you said it."
The Stomper later asked her: "Do you know the rules before you book the car?"
The woman replied: "So you think I'm actually going to read through... So what are the rules? Every driver has a different rule."
The driver said: "No, the rules are all the same."
The passenger alighted at the edge of a bus stop at North Buona Vista Road and the Stomper drove away.
He told Stomp: "For the case of eating in the car, some riders have ego issues and bring their culture or habits from their home country here. They are trying to test the system.
"We meet all sorts of people in our course or nature of work. What is most important is we learn how to deal with the situation in a professional way and learn from it so that we will know how to tackle it in the future."
In the Tada Riders Community Guidelines, there is no rule prohibiting eating or drinking in the car.
But Stomp called the Tada hotline at 6028 8145 and was informed that the private-hire driver sets the rule on whether eating and drinking are allowed since it is his or her vehicle.
As for taxis, in the ComfortDelGro customer charter, it states: "Don't eat, drink, litter, smoke or vandalise the taxi so that the taxi is kept clean for the next passenger."
