"Not My Problem Bah!"

I must admit I was not surprised that a foreign tourist was charged RM450 for a short ride in KL, as highlighted in the papers. It's probably a good bet that this sort of thing happens much more often than we realize. The only difference is other victims kept their disgruntled silence and let the shameful incident go unreported, justifying the horrid experience as one of the pitfalls of world travel.

We Malaysians have let the irresponsible taxi drivers run around "ber-maharajalela" targeting good paying customers for far too long. I'm sure the relevant authorities have ways and means of identifying and tracking down these culprits. What I have long feared and suspect is the lack of enforcement. What do these errant cabbies get? A slap on the wrist? Will their taxi licence be revoked? If suspended, for how long? Who will be making rounds to ensure that offenders be punished? Not trying to sound draconian but sometimes getting to the root of the problem in a consistent and in a "Saya tak main-main" attitude might work. However, if the authorities insist on dealing with an isolated case and do nothing about taxi drivers in general, sorry lah Pok, nang sik jadi. Personally, I don't feel that enough is being done to address the issue. Insufficient workforce, corrupt workforce (the more likely reason) and the uncaring attitude of Malaysians in general all, contribute to the problem. Malaysians have this attitude of "It's not my problem, I don't take a taxi." Hence we see a proliferation of other serious road problems in Malaysia (Ooopppppsss! I digress to bad road users-that's another post entirely).

That sort of sorry episode will continue to grace our headlines because no one will think about doing anything about it. Just lots of huh-hah for 3 days at the most.

 Malaysians: "Not my problem bah!"