Taxi drivers as a model of good driving habits‏

There have been several conversations recently regarding the bad driving habits being exhibited by drivers on Singapore roads. Although there are no easy fixes, through my observations however as a driver, I feel that one way that driving standards can be improved is by making taxi drivers the benchmark when it comes to displaying good driving habits.

Taxis, due to the nature of their large numbers on our roads, are highly visible. As of Jul 2012, there are more than 28,000 taxis operating on Singapore roads according to data from the LTA. I would venture to say that all the typical Singapore driver bad habits e.g. horn abuse, abrupt changing of lanes without signalling, speeding up in lanes when someone signals, tailgating/road hogging, sudden stopping on roadsides are all exhibited in some way or form by taxi drivers here.

If taxi drivers were to show all the best characteristics of good driving, I feel that it would rub-off on other drivers on Singapore roads.

What are some of the ways of improving taxi driver driving habits you might ask? Besides the obvious way e.g. sending taxi drivers to good driving courses or other training courses, taxi companies should take a more active part in reprimanding bad driving and incentizing taxi drivers for good driving behaviour. Have a scheme whereby other road users can give feedback ok good driving behaviour shown by taxi drivers. Have a scheme where taxi drivers will face bans when they exhibit bad driving habits.

When I have taken taxis in Singapore in the past, the drivers who I spoke to tend to be a stressed lot who complain about business being harder now as compared to the past. The stress of bad driving habits on the roads as well as that of competing with others could possibly result in bad driving habits. As the ratio of taxis to population (and land size) in Singapore is much greater than in other countries, for example Hong Kong, one way to reduce this stress is to reduce the total number of taxis on our roads which would ensure that taxi drivers would not have so much competition in looking for fares and in turn exhibit bad driving.

My hope at the end of the day is for Singapore to have a model taxi force, which consists not just of the latest and most modern taxi fleet and systems, but also where taxi drivers display good driving habits which the rest of the road users will model themselves by. This in turn might also make Singapore a less stressful and dangerous place to be for other road users.