Are Singaporean taxi drivers trained?

Singaporean taxi drivers often strike me as among the least knowledgeable of their breed. Indeed, Singapore is the only country I have ever visited, in which the taxi drivers quite often don't know where they are going. It seems needless to add, but add I must, that Singapore is such a small country, that it is, in fact, a modest sized city, and that to not know where you are going, within it, as a professional driver, is quite some feat.

It is apt that I should comment at this time, for the largest taxi fleet is set to raise the flagdown rate of its taxis by a rumoured 30 cents and has hinted at other ways to raise revenue (read: increase pricing), as well. This comes upon the huge rise in call-out charges some months back.

The big question is, of course: are these price rises justified when service is so poor?

Before any prices rise, the taxi fleets need to address the issue of driver competence. Singaporean drivers are often a poorly informed and not particularly honest bunch. They don't know where they are going - or if they do, they deliberately take very circuitous routes. They do anything they can to inflate the fare and cheat the passenger - particularly if, like me, that passenger is a foreigner. I have seen all sorts of ploys - all of them calculated to deprive me of rather more dollars than is justified by the journey embarked upon. Some drivers have even driven off with the passengers' belongings. (Some 20,000 dollars worth of wedding gifts, for instance, in a famous recent case.) So, all in all, a Singaporean taxi is something to be wary of, for one reason or another.

A recent journey brought me to ask the title question. We booked a taxi (and paid the exorbitant surcharges), since we were going to a wedding. Rather than give him our precise location, we told him to drive to somewhere obvious, nearby.

"Jurong Junior College.", we requested, as we got into the cab.

"Where? I don't know.", he replied.

Ah, I thought, he doesn't know where the Junior College is.

"You show me.", he continued, pointing ahead at the mystery of the roads, on which he drove daily.

So, we were to show a professional driver, in a very small city, where to go...

We got to the first meeting of roads and he slowed. "Which way?" he asked, without embarrassment.

It was clear, then, that it was not the Junior College that he didn't know the way to. He didn't know the way to Jurong. That flabbergasted me - for it meant he didn't know the city at all.

As the journey proceeded, this man, who had the nerve to call himself a taxi driver, would ask us for instructions at every single meeting of roads, junction or turning, all along the way. He quite simply knew nothing at all of the geography of Singapore.

Finally, as we neared our destination, my wife said: "Just turn left at Jurong JC."

"JC? I don't know what JC is." he said, in utter mystification.

My wife and I looked at each other. There is something you should know at this point. Only Singaporeans are allowed to drive Singaporean taxis. That means that all were born here, educated here and grew up here. As you have no doubt noticed, JC is the abbreviation for Junior College (which we first asked him for). So, even if he had been a foreigner - which he couldn't possibly be - he should have known what JC was. Yet, he was a native. He had been through the school system - yet he had managed to do so, without knowing the names of the schools.

I grew really uncomfortable then. Was our driver senile? He didn't look old enough to be, being in his fifties at my best guess. Or was he just lying about his lack of knowledge? Was his "I don't know where I am going", just a ruse to ensure that, on average, he always travelled a longer route than otherwise, because his passengers would tend not to have the best route knowledge?

In a way, I rather hoped it was a ruse - for I find it incredible that someone of so little mental competence, as not even to know the most basic things about the society he grew up in - not its geography and not the names of its institutions - could actually be allowed behind the wheel of a taxi.

Was he truly that mentally incompetent? If so, he shouldn't be driving - and a system that can allow such a driver on the road, is seriously flawed. Clearly, there is no real training of these drivers. It is not infrequent to step into a cab driven by someone who hasn't got a clue where he is going. That should never happen. No-one should be allowed to drive until they know their way around.

In London, where I grew up, the cab drivers prided themselves on The Knowledge - an examination in the routing between all destinations in London. All cab drivers had to pass this test. As a result, I never had the experience, in London, of being driven by a taxi driver who didn't know where he was going. Yet, in Singapore, I have that experience several times a week. Singaporean drivers simply don't know Singapore. Furthermore, those that do, often use that knowledge of best routes, to avoid them and give the passenger the longest, most expensive route possible (at least they do to me, a Caucasian). It is truly a disgrace to the nation. Yet, instead of addressing the issue of useless, incompetent and dishonest drivers - what are the authorities going to do? They are going to raise the price of taxis again. That is the second time in a year.

Before they raise prices, they should first take off the roads all the dishonest drivers - and all the incompetent drivers. All new drivers should be exhaustively trained in the ways and byways of Singapore. Then, and only then, should they even begin to consider raising the price. They should remember that it is called a taxi SERVICE - and attend to the service part, first.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)