Keller281

Mod : please help merge this post if there is already a thread started on this subject.
After 10PM, we were trying to flag down a cab in a busy street with lot of empty cabs driving by. For 15 mins, all of them drove by and did not bother to pull over. Finally 3/4 young guys came over to offer to call us one.
I came to realize that they did not bother with us because they saw a full size adult wheelchair. They did not want to go thru the trouble of arranging their trunk space to accommodate the wheelchair.

DeltaWings

Even in the United States, specially adapted wheelchair taxis can be difficult to get - drivers see the wheelchair call and ignore it. They aren't interested in the extra work.

I have also been told, by particular cab drivers I use regularly, that wheelchair passengers are, by and large, poor or non-tippers.

Until all taxis are adapted, as in London, I don't expect this to improve.

Katja

I've had this experience in many places. I'm able to transfer into a regular taxi and my wheelchair easily fits in most trunks/boots, but taxi drivers still ignore me. My most successful strategy is to get someone else to hail the cab for me.

jbb

It's unfortunate you had this experience. Despite being an incredibly advanced country, disability rights are not as strong in Singapore as they should be. (ie. many commercial stores do not allow seeing eye dogs, some major buildings do not have wheelchair ramps or lifts...)

However, I might offer an alternative explanation as an able-bodied person who lived in Singapore for 5 years and had similar experiences. In Singapore, taxi drivers get extra fare for call-outs, meaning that they are incentivized to drive around and wait for a call-out as opposed to picking someone off the street. Many is a time that I have been trying to flag down a cab and seen many green signs go by only to give up and book one through an app and pay the extra SG$2-3 booking fee. It got to the point that I would rarely hail a cab on the street and exclusively use the taxi-booking apps. It's something that I think many Western tourists would be rightfully ignorant of as in North America there is no charge for booking via phone or app. It took some getting used to, but once I figured out how to use the apps and learned the better taxi queues in central areas to get a cab it got easier. The arrival of ridesharing apps like Uber and Grabcar made things MUCH better too. That doesn't make it any easier for short-term tourists though!

One positive thing is that the Singapore taxi market is well regulated. So, if a cab driver bluntly refuses you for a destination or because of something like a wheelchair you can get them in trouble with the authorities and they will follow through. I did that once to a cabbie who rejected my destination in favour of someone who was staying in the city centre. As that broke the rules, I complained to the transport authority and the cabbie was fined and had his license suspended for 2 weeks. All taxis are GPS monitored too and will always give a receipt when asked. So, if you feel the driver is going a circuitous route (only happened once to me out of hundreds of rides), you can quickly call the taxi company, they'll check the GPS and if the route was too long they'll quickly issue you a refund. That's more than can be said for some taxi systems in the US!