A Terrorist TIBS881G Driver - Bus No. 190

Here's a letter I wrote 30 minutes ago to the Corporate Comms department of SMRT...

Re: Complaint against driver of TIBS881G – 30 August 2006

Bus No: 190
Vehicle No: TIBS881G
Boarding Point/Time: Outside Stamford House / 6:50pm
Alighting Point / Time: Outside RGS / 7:20pm


I would like to highlight a serious complaint against the driver of the vehicle with details as listed.

At 6:50pm, my colleague and I boarded bus 190 outside of Stamford House. We had intended to take the bus to the stop outside Thong Teck building to meet our manager for a crucial business appointment at Shaw Centre at 7.15pm.

The bus being a bendy bus had two exits and we were standing at the 2nd exit located at the furthest end of the bus. Having reached our destination, the bell was pressed by other passengers sharing the same stop and the first exit was opened. The driver however forgot to operate the 2nd exit, the exit where we were waiting to get off the bus.

Seeing his oversight, I pressed the bell repeatedly to signal his attention to open the door. This repeatedly pressing of the bell failed to jolt his memory to open the 2nd exit. Due to the peak hour, the bus was fairly packed and we were unable to try and make our way to the first exit in time and risk having the bus move off.

In a state of panic as we were rushing for our important business meeting, I raised my voice sufficiently to request the driver to please open the door. My volume was loud enough to have passengers in the front portion of the bus turn their heads to look at me. I repeated my request twice in the same volume.

Unfortunately, none of the passengers in the front assisted in getting the driver's attention and he simply drove off with us still frantically pressing the bell.

About a minute later, the bus came to a stop at a nearby traffic light, seeing that this was the perfect opportunity to salvage the situation, I again frantically pressed the bell repeatedly hoping that he could open the door for a second just so that we could hop off and get to our meeting in time.

The driver again chose to ignore our signals and the sounding of the bell. He finally let us off at the next stop outside of Raffles Girls School.

Once I got off the bus, I ran over to the entrance to get the driver's attention and he had the audacity to open the door and glare at me as if it was our fault that he forgot to open the second door.

If the driver is not able to be sufficiently focused and competent enough to captain a bendy bus with 2 exits (3 including entrance) he should be scheduled to drive normal buses with just 1 exit and 1 entrance.

The way the driver handled this situation is truly appalling and NOT a good or healthy representation of SMRT. I would not have complained if he had the decency to apologize when he opened the door after we got off.
Our distress did not end there, after the bus happily sped off, we were left in the rain - in great panic as we were late for our important business meeting and we were not even able to call a cab due to the peak hour situation coupled with the rainy weather.

As a desperate resort, we had no choice but to trudge our way back to Shaw Centre by foot in the pouring rain. By the time we walked all the way back to Orchard, we were soaking wet and an hour late for our appointment.

As anyone can imagine, we did not look a pretty sight, much less expect to maintain a professional image. Our manager was also not impressed with the whole situation and we were 'advised' to not attend the meeting with her so as not to disgrace our company; in our state of being 'rain-soaked' - all thanks to the fantastic TIBS881G terrorist driver who happened to ply the roads at the peak hours of 7pm.

I can only hope that my colleague and I will not be black-marked by our company for this unfortunate incident that was through no fault of ours. As a working professional yourself, I trust you will understand our position and our fears of being misunderstood as shoddy employees by our company.

With his level of customer service and professionalism, it would be safer if he kept to just driving a bicycle instead of jeopardizing the welfare of his passengers who are at his total mercy and have to risk being glared at by him for his mistake.

I hope that your good company will look seriously into this matter and investigate the performance of this driver so as to prevent your good name from being further tarnished.

I hope to receive compensation on the fares that my colleague and I paid since the service required was not delivered. More importantly, I would also appreciate if your company could take suitable action against the driver or to issue him a warning or better still, send him for skills retraining.

Seeing how Singapore is aiming to be a world class city nation with world class service as illustrated in our hosting of the upcoming IMF meeting, such a 'wonderful' driver would be a befitting disgrace to our country.

I am ready to write in to the Straits Times and to the Ministry of Transport to highlight this incident. My colleague is too willing to testify towards this incident, so as to prevent others from the possibility of being terrorized and distressed by this driver in future.

Please contact me at 9xxx xxxx soonest possible. I thank you for your kind attention in this matter.

Yours Sincerely,
Sharon Tan