(The following is a translation of an opinion article by journalist Sérgio Terra, Executive Editorial Director at Portuguese daily paper Jornal Tribuna de Macau, posted at the paper’s En Passent Opinion Articles Section on JTM’s Thursday, September 18, edition.) PLEASE, DO CALL THE COPS Reflecting on the aftermath of Typhoon Kalmaegi, Mr Terra noted: “yes we had the usual incidents, the same old flooding chaos affecting the Inner Harbour area, as well as five people that were injured and had to receive hospital treatment. Kalmaegi’s (lock down of Macau for 12 hours) underlined what ‘half of the world’ already knows: Macau Taxi Drivers showing how intractable they can be, acting as Lords in Kingless Kingdom.” “Neither the public consultation on the review of the regulation of the sector, that promises to enact measures such as strengthening oversight - including plainclothes agents and a direct involvement by officers from local security agency PSP - together with a reinforcement on sanctions - nor threats by DSAT officials, seem to work in deterring this bad apples taxi drivers on illegally trying to extract outrageous sums of money from clients in need. A handful of people reported their complaints to both DSAT and the media, denouncing cases in which they were told to pay over MOP 1,000.00 for a commute between the Border Gate and Taipa!” Mr Terra noted that in this lawless and savage filed environment justice must be done to the few good man who obey the law and conduct their activity applying a code of good practices. “(The wrongful and unlawful) acts by this abusive taxi drivers do damage the city’s image which is out in the open, to all and everyone to see, in plain sight. Yet again, these facts were not take into consideration by the people at the Federation of Taxi Business (FTB) who could not have assumed a more blatant mea culpa when calling for the withdrawal of the proposal to revise the regulation, warning that undercover surveillance will be a disaster to the sector”. Mr Terra considers that present situation constitutes a case study, and argues that the FTB public stance is - in a way - in retaliation for the yet to be approved hike in the meter fare. Mr Terra also writes about what he sees as a change of attitude by lawless “and now also fearless” taxi drivers, “Some seem keen on solving matters via physical confrontation, others (bluntly) let passengers know that they do not care at all if any complaints are made to the authorities: ”Call the police at youre own will one of these Black Sheep replied when threatened by a customer, after refusing to drive to the client’s destination. “Nobody told me this story. I experienced it first hand.” This is why Mr Terra considers that the safe bet - the only bet!!! - is to “place all my chips and bet on Police (coming out as winners). Never mind if these officers patrol in uniform or act under the cover of plain clothes.”
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:18:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015