Firm: Ugly acts will continue until SPAD regulates ride-hailing

PETALING JAYA: Incidents of taxi drivers hounding Uber or GrabCar drivers will end once the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) comes up with clear guidelines regulating the fast growing industry.

Big Blue Taxi Services founder Datuk Shamsubahrin Ismail said such incidents will continue until SPAD steps in to resolve by coming up with guidelines to regulate ride-hailing drivers, he said.

He suggested that e-hailing services be temporarily halted pending implementation of SPAD’s guidelines to regulate it.

Federal Territory and Selangor Taxi Operators president Datuk Aslah Abdullah said yesterday the Kelana Jaya incident was likely due to abusive taxi drivers who were unable to distinguish between ordinary cars and those used by Uber or Grab car drivers.

Shamsubahrin and Aslah were asked to comment on Sunday’s incident where a lady driver named Sau Man claimed that two taxi drivers verbally abused her and pelted eggs on her car after she picked up a friend from the Kelana Jaya train station.

She believes the taxi drivers, who wore the black slacks and white shirt uniform, may have mistaken her for an Uber driver and vented their anger on her. She posted the incident on Facebook with photographs of her cleaning the eggs off her car’s rear screen.

“First of all, where on my car did it state that I’m an Uber driver?

“You have failed to identify me as one and yet proceeded with your shameful act.

“Shame on you. Secondly, who gave you the right to verbally attack me and physically damage my car with precious eggs?” she ranted in her post.

Her post has since gone viral with almost 4,000 netizens sharing her post. Since March, there have been several reports of Uber and GrabCar drivers and passengers being hounded and verbally abused by taxi drivers in the Klang Valley and Penang.

On June 24, a taxi driver was arrested for manhandling a female passenger of a ride-hailing service at KL Sentral on June 20.

On June 29, a 35-year-old GrabCar driver was allegedly intimidated by a group of angry cabbies at Mid Valley Megamall

On July 16, two cab drivers were fined RM2,000 by the Kuala Lumpur magistrate’s court after pleading guilty to damaging a GrabCar driver’s vehicle at Mid Valley on June 28.

SPAD is waiting for a Cabinet decision on its proposed Taxi Industry Transformation Prog­ramme, which includes regulating Uber and GrabCar and to create a level playing field for taxi drivers.