Striking taxis
New Straits Times (Columns)
2 Sep 2007

Spooked by anonymous flyers and the menace of a whispering campaign, some drivers stayed at home, probably with relief after the smashing of "three or four" blackleg windscreens by motorcycle-borne vandals, according to Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board chairman Datuk Markiman Kobiran. Taxi associations would have none of it, insisting they would keep their fleets on the streets throughout the two-day strike call. As industrial actions go, this one will not be difficult to break: It has little support among cabbies, who, without much in the way of a collective bargaining position, would have to get the meter running sooner or later to meet the financial commitments of the job.

City and transport authorities everywhere, however, sometimes have nightmares of a wholesale taxi drivers’ walkout pushing their busy urban areas to a standstill. For that reason, rapidly growing cities such as KL and Beijing acted to flood the market by issuing licences to big, business-minded fleet operators and taking power away from potentially more troublesome owner-drivers. That model of forcing up the level of services by deliberate oversupply is reaching its limits. Taxis are plentiful in KL, but getting a ride is increasingly a matter of haggling and preparing to fork out for congestion or out-of-the-way distances. Understandably, the Ministry of Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development has responded to the latest agitation with a promise to study the sector’s fare structure. But it was not giving in to pressure, which it has more than enough brawn to resist. The government now realises that its popular obsession with keeping prices low may come at a cost to safety and service standards, particularly after the eye-popping Bukit Gantang bus crash on Aug 13.

KL’s taxi fares are among the lowest in the world — a good selling point for Visit Malaysia Year if not for the many routinely fleeced tourists. Higher charges may be a necessary but certainly not a sufficient condition for meter-sticking honesty. Enforcement is the half of the story that has been told ad nauseum. The ministry’s study should thus not be confined to the economics of the trade but venture better ways to police it. Most cities in the developed countries have taxi and bus inspectors, a practice the government should emulate as it strives to balance the welfare and interests of KL’s hard-pressed drivers with those of their equally harried customers.

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