Taxi Common Sense

Recently I was speaking to a friend when our conversation went to the recent survey done by Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). The survey was on the question of why can’t you get a taxi in Singapore when it rains?

According to a five-month study initiated by SMART, the answer to this question is because most taxi drivers usually chose not to drive when it rains. My friend was surprised by the results as the common logic is that more people will chose to take taxis when it rain, so raining days are good business days for taxi-drivers.

I wasn’t. In fact not only was I not surprised, I couldn’t believe it required SMART to have a five-month study for them to figure this out.

In Singapore, taxi-drivers has to set aside a sum of money to the taxi company they rent their taxis from and when they get into an accident, they are expected to “top up” the amount while waiting for the outcome of the accident investigation. That’s all on top of the daily rent they pay to their taxi companies.

I mean come on here, is it a surprise Singapore taxi-drivers are shy about driving in the rain when they have to pay when they get involved in an accident? Considering the financial burden they have to bear if they get into accidents, it’s natural for them to “lower their risk”. I think its common sense and very natural if you’re a taxi-driver. If I’m one of them, I will do the same thing. And as I told my friend; if you’re one of them, I’ll say so would you!