When a small girl vomited in a private-hire vehicle (PHV), its female driver surprisingly did not get angry, but tried to comfort the child instead.
She was rewarded with a S$25 tip from the girl’s mother, she said in a Facebook post on Saturday (20 Dec).
Source: Art Markiv on Unsplash. Photo for illustration purposes only.
Posting in a Facebook group for PHV drivers, Ms Ang Ee Xin shared what happened during a job that she took that morning.
According to her screenshot, she picked up the group at Medway Drive in Serangoon Gardens at 8.50am.
Their destination was Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal — a distance of about 30km.
Source: Ang Ee Xin on Facebook
The group included a little girl, who was sitting in the middle.
Just before they reached, however, the little girl suddenly vomited all over her clothes and her seatbelt.
The car was instantly filled with a terrible smell.
However, Ms Ang was not angry and did not say anything, she said.
Instead, she “felt bad” for not being prepared as she did not have a plastic bag in the car, she revealed, adding:
I didn’t expect it to happen again. That was on me.
Ms Ang tried to comfort the girl, describing her as, “So small. So innocent”.
She offered the child lavender and gently suggested that she smell it, as it might help her feel better.
Source: Aga Silva on Unsplash. Photo for illustration purposes only.
The smell was so bad that even a friend of her passengers reacted to the smell when they when arrived at the ferry terminal.
But Ms Ang simply said:
Yeah… it smells quite bad.
The girl’s mother kept apologising, but the driver coolly replied before driving off:
It’s okay. Just go and enjoy your holiday.
Ms Ang acknowledged that her car smelled “awful” after the job, but “it was okay”.
She undertook the clean-up herself at home, doing what she could and telling herself:
Children don’t do this on purpose. And if anything, I should have been more prepared.
Having made peace with the incident, Ms Ang said she was “genuinely surprised” when she noticed that she was tipped S$25 for the job.
That was more than the S$21.30 trip fare, according to her screenshot.
It brought her net earnings to S$54.87 for the trip.
Source: Ang Ee Xin on Facebook
Ms Ang shared this story with other drivers to advise them “not to react too fast” when children suffer mishaps in their cars.
They should instead think about how they would react if it were their child, she said.
She would not be concerned about “lost time, lost income, or delays”, but see the incident as “karma”, she noted, adding:
Maybe the universe was telling me to slow down. To take a short break. To clean up and reset, even though I had just started my day.
Thus, she followed the zen-like philosophy of not complaining about mishaps, but trying to look for “the meaning” behind them.
PHV drivers can also take comfort that some ride-hailing platforms in Singapore will reimburse drivers for their cleaning fees, including Grab, which Ms Ang uses.
According to Grab’s help portal, drivers may claim up to S$120 in cleaning expense claims when passengers leave vomit in their vehicle.
Gojek will cover up to S$50 of cleaning costs if passengers make a mess in vehicles, said its handbook for driver-partners.
Tada’s community guidelines say that drivers can be paid up to S$70 when stains or odours are left in the car that require professional cleaning to remove, including those due to vomiting.
In these cases, cleaning receipts must be submitted, along with other information, in order to make claims.
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Featured image adapted from Ang Ee Xin on Facebook and Art Markiv on Unsplash. Photo on the right for illustration purposes only.