Here’s my own personal take on the whole Taxi fiasco. I was in Puchong for an assignment and didn’t bother to drive cause the limited parking space at the venue. So next best thing is to head there by UBER (RM25.37 (inclusive of the toll charges on NKVE Toll and KESAS)).

Didn't even be bothered to try and flag down a taxi in my area as I hardly see any during the day, and I was heading out at 6 in the morning. Aside from residences heading out to work, no public transport in sight.

After my shoot ended, I thought, why not give all these Taxi drivers a chance and ride one of them back to Kota Damansara? Waited a good 15minutes before I managed to flagged down 4 cabs, 3 refuse to fetch me because I want them to use meter and prefer to give me a flat rate (I was quoted between RM50 – RM80 for the trip, reason? So Far!) instead. 1 refuse to fetch because I’m heading into Kota Damansara and he say hard to get passengers out from there.

Now, mind you that as a Photographer, I was also taking a risk standing by the roadside with no shelters whatsoever trying to flag down a taxi, at the Industrial area, there’s not even a bus stop for me to stand under and I was carrying a lot of expensive gears that I use for work (My gears are insured but if they are snatched, I’ll lose a couple of weeks worth of jobs as I go around spending unnecessary money replacing my gears).

Yes, I could just use GRAB’s app to hail a taxi but I wanted to give the usual taxi out there a chance, especially those that is not tied in with GRAB’s service. Rather than wasting my time standing under the sun waiting for another cab to be disappointed again, I use the ride hailing app and got an UBER in 4 minutes right at the venue. Total cost of my ride? RM24.20 (inclusive of the Sunway Toll and NKVE Toll), we even stopped at KFC on NKVE as I wanted to buy lunch for myself and the driver happily accommodate.

So, it is not because we don’t want to use their service, it is more like they don’t want customers unless it’s one that will do it their way. And mind you, this is the general scenario wherever you flag down a taxi in the Klang Valley, it is especially worse if they see that you’re a tourist as experienced by a friend of mine recently.

Mind you, these are just one of those bad apples that made the whole industry look bad. I do know of some taxi drivers that is super helpful and accommodating but they too had since moved to GRAB and UBER because they actually is able to make money instead of giving a huge chunk of their daily profit to the Taxi Company.

So, is it the public’s fault that we decide to use those app to get a ride to our destination? No! It is the Taxi drivers themselves that has created this issue in the first place by trying to impose their own demands on the passengers when all they need to do to get constant customers is not to be choosy.

Stop blaming GRAB and UBER for snatching away your customers, look at yourself first and reflect on what you are doing. It is always easier to blame others for your own choices but until you stop being a pain in the ass and acting like hooligans, you’ll continue to have this issue of not getting customers.

Once the MRT and LRT stations expands to more locations, are you going to start blaming those as well for affecting your rice bowl? One is being build just a stone’s throw away from where I live, and I’ll definitely use the MRT often too if I am not in a rush to go to my destination.