Taxi drivers who flout the law to pay heavy price
Picture posed by a model.
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PETALING JAYA: Rude and dishonest cabbies will soon pay a high price for their errant behaviour – they can be suspended from between one and three months.
It will be costly for taxi companies, too. The Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) will revoke permits issued to vehicles if their drivers are found to be repeat offenders.
The stringent rules of the SPAD will be implemented by its newly formed Suspension and Revocation Unit (SRU).
SPAD chief executive Mohamad Nur Ismal Kamal said the SRU was created because the current enforcement of the taxi industry was not effective.
“All a passenger has to do is to get a video or audio recording of the wrongdoing and send it to SPAD with the time, place and some information about the driver.
“The driver will be summoned and if he is found to have committed an offence, he will be issued a showcause letter. Action will be taken after the driver’s reply,” he said.
Mohamad Nur Ismal cited recent cases in which videos of taxi drivers who overcharged rates were sent to SPAD via its Twitter account @aduanSPAD. The licences of the cabbies were suspended for a month.
Currently, violations are only detected by SPAD personnel conducting operations or after passenger complaints.
“Officers have to get into taxis undercover to find out if drivers are cheating on the rates or not using meters. They have to alert other enforcement officers to nab the errant drivers at the end of the trip.”
“This takes too much time and some drivers even call their colleagues for help when confronted,” he said.
Mohamad Nur Ismal said public complaints were also difficult to resolve with passengers usually unwilling to come before SPAD, or provide information.
He said taking drivers to court was time consuming, adding that the fines imposed on errant cabbies were often negligible.
He said SPAD would also focus on getting its enforcement agents to record videos of drivers instead of conducting operations to check violations of rules.
When asked if the suspensions of between a month and three months were too lenient, he disagreed, saying that driving was the cabbies’ only source of income.
“If they are renting a taxi from a company, they have to make their daily payments. If they own the taxi, they have to pay the monthly instalments,” he said.
He said as drivers who rent their taxis from companies pay from RM50 a day or more, it would be costly for them to be suspended.
“As drivers become fully aware of this, a three-month suspension is going to be normal for those who flout the rules,” he said, adding that the licences of suspended drivers found to be still picking up passengers would be revoked.
The Centralised Taxi Service Systen (CTSS) would be used to detect suspended drivers, he said.
Mohamad Nur Ismal said each case would be handled carefully, noting that it was also possible for drivers to be victimised by passengers.
