A Singaporean taxi driver is adamant about going to jail rather than paying a fine of a few hundred dollars, all because he remembered the rules incorrectly.

Strange story

This strange tale, which was shared to the Singapore Taxi Driver Facebook page on Aug. 15, is as follows:

The taxi driver had accepted a JustGrab booking on Nov. 17, 2017, and then mistakenly thought he could not pick up the child passenger below the height of 1.35m, because he didn't have a child seat.

However, taxis are, in fact, allowed to pick up passengers below 1.35m, according to the Road Traffic Act, as they are not private hire vehicles and are categorised as public transport and are not hired under a contract.

The error, according to the taxi driver, was a result of having accepted the booking under the Grab app.

The taxi driver, who at the start of his note apologised for his poor grasp of English, wrote:

"For my understanding of the Grab booking, as if rider’s with kid under the height 1.35m, was advisable to book a GrabFamily or a GrabTaxi . I immediately told the lady it was a wrong booking and asked her to cancel and rebook a correct category of booking."

He also mentioned that the female passenger had included a note stating that she had a child with her, but he didn't see it as he was concentrating on making his way to the pick-up point.

After telling her to cancel the booking, he drove off.

LTA interview

Two weeks later, Ching had a meeting with a Land Transport Authority officer, and was informed that what he had done amounted to an offence.

According to the photo of the LTA letter issued to the taxi driver, he was fined S$300 and was to have six demerit points issued to him.

Ching appealed against the punishment on April 23, but was unsuccessful in getting the fine and demerit points waived.

Said Ching:

"As I was driving a taxi and not a phv, I’ve no reason to reject any riders, but I’m confused in a way that this was a Grab booking and I always follow the rules and regulations of Grab ruling. And I do inform the rider of wrong booking."

You can see the letter below:

Not paying fine

The taxi driver has since declared his intention to not pay the fine if his appeal failed, and would rather be jailed:

"I’m making an appeal to LTA, if the appeal fail, I decided not to pay the fine as I think it unjustified as my case. I’ll serve the jail term in order to let the pretty lady know what has she done to a taxi driver’s with her knowledge of education."

He blames the passenger who made the booking for his predicament:

"I strongly believe the pretty lady was high educated and understand the rules and regulations of booking a ride through Grab . She know the reason why other drivers rejected her booking and yet keep trying to book a JustGrab booking with kids, was that because her stupidity and selfishness make her lose the righteous of being a human being, and make other suffer....?????"

Even though the taxi driver had clearly accepted the booking under JustGrab, he was still driving a taxi at that time.

This point was made repeatedly in the comments on his Facebook post, although the taxi driver didn't seem willing to hear them out.

He does have his supporters though:

Grab can help

It is not known how Grab can help the driver in this instance, but a check with Grab's hotline indicate that the app can intervene in similar situations on behalf of the driver.

A driver can inform Grab about the issue when it happens, and its representative can help to contact the passenger and advise them to cancel the booking, if need be.

The passenger can then make a new booking under a more appropriate category, such as GrabFamily.

Grab can also help to cancel the initial booking.

You can read the taxi driver's post here.

This isn't the first time that the 1.35m child seat rule has caused trouble, as you can read below.

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Top image adapted from Pixabay and Singapore Taxi Driver Facebook group