When taking ride-hailing services, disputes may occur over issues like pick-up location.
But things took a harsher turn for a customer who claimed that a Grab driver made racist remarks to them during such a dispute.
Source: GRAB CAR registration on Facebook. Photo for illustration purposes only.
Grab said that they’re investigating the incident.
In an Instagram post by @sgfollowsall, screenshots of a conversation in the Grab app were shared by an anonymous prospective passenger.
The exchange started with the driver telling the customer that he could not turn into a road due to construction works.
While the customer said they would wait, the driver simply said, “cannot”.
When the customer asked him to cancel the booking or come, the driver just replied, “no”, confusing the customer.
Source: @sgfollowsall on Instagram
The driver then asked the passenger a curious question — whether they were Indian.
When the passenger asked him why that mattered, the driver appeared to cite how their behaviours are “different” and how they blamed the road and “lication” (possibly a typo for ‘location’).
The passenger accused the driver of being racist, to which the driver said something even more provocative: “go back India”.
In the caption of the @sgfollowsall post, the OP said these remarks were “totally uncalled for and blatant racism”.
As they’ve worked and lived in Singapore for 10 years, such behaviour was “so blatant” and “for no reason”, they added.
Eventually, they managed to get a Gojek to reach their destination instead.
However, they still reported the incident to Grab.
Grab is investigating this incident, the ride-hailing platform was quoted by The Straits Times (ST) as saying.
A spokesman for the company maintained that they take “a strong stance against discriminatory behaviour and language”.
Thus, their driver-partners should be fair and not discriminate against passengers, as stipulated in their code of conduct.
This is the second such incident in the last three months.
In October, a Grab driver was recorded making a racist tirade after his passenger was late, including calling him a “rubbish Indian”.
After the footage was posted on TikTok, Grab suspended the driver, they said.
In September, a similar incident occurred when a TADA driver racially abused a Singaporean Eurasian passenger for being ‘Indian’.
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Featured image adapted from @sgfollowsall on Instagram and GRAB CAR registration on Facebook. Photo on the right for illustration purposes only.
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