Cab Drivers might not always be Right!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009 @ at
9:03 AM
Was slightly late today and decided to take a cab to come to office. Actually, after taking the ride, I realised I could have saved the money and take public transport instead. Wouldn't be that late I guess. Regretted taking the cab this morning. Haiz...
Normally I will go by CTE and exit Braddell, head down by Bartley to reach Upper Paya Lebar Road and from there, to come into office. Today, the driver told me... why suffer the Jam and incur ERP? He has customers who opt to go by KPE and come in by Eunos Link. That way is much faster and won't be that jam. Told the uncle I am afraid of the jam at Punggol that side and he said at least it won't be that bad as compared to CTE. Since I am pretty early, I guess why not try what the driver has proposed and who knows, might have explored a better route to come office.
Well, wrong decision made. Before entering into the expressway, the estimated time shown on the board to go AMK Ave 1 was just 9 mins and Punggol was 12 mins. Furthermore, to Cairnhill was just abt 19 mins. Fair enough for a weekday I guessed. Cos sometimes, the estimated time to go Cairnhill could be 25 / 28 mins! I thought Punggol is further away and so, 12 mins to reach Punggol that end is still alright ba. Reached the area, started with some jam. Still movable but... if I opt for CTE, it won't be jammed at all ma. Bear with it and stayed awake to see which are the routes that the Cab driver took.
Haiz... along the way got slow moving traffic and in fact, the journey is further and take much longer for me to reach office! Also, cab fare also more expensive lor! I rather incurred 1 ERP and save on my time and also, I dun have to pay so much. Sometimes I really wonder... why there are some drivers out there who will talk you into going by the longer way and kept telling you it's shorter etc. Their motive... to earn extra money out of the peak hour surcharge. I thought it would make more sense for them to drop you off faster so they could at least pick up other passengers to earn extra. Perhaps they find it getting more difficult to have passengers especially during the peak hours? Well, sometimes even as you want to save money, if there is a need to take a cab, people will still have to take. We spend because we want to reach our destination fast and not to end up, paying more and spending more time reaching the place.
Conclusion to this... Cab drivers might be on the roads all day long but they are not always right. Sometimes as passengers aka customers, we still need to make our stand and insist they go by the way we want.
