If you work late at night or do a night shift, you can have quite a lot of strange encounters. My third story is a warning to night shift taxi drivers. I have been listening to my favourite Singapore radio station Love 97.2FM Mr Zhou’s Ghost Stories podcasts since last year. Some of the stories involve taxi drivers picking up some strange ‘passengers’. Or their business was poor because they had an extra ‘passenger’ in the front seat that they weren’t aware of which put other potential passengers off from flagging it down.
This story happened in 1997 in Singapore. I was going to meet my friends for a steamboat and I was late. I alighted at City Hall MRT station and proceeded to the shopping mall taxi stand to take a taxi.
Back in the 90s, taxi meters had no consistency in their pricing. Some started at $2.20, some at $2.40 or $2.80 and some meters escalated quicker than others! I don’t take taxis unnecessarily unless I am very desperate. At that time, I only owned a pager and not a mobile phone. It is very hard to book a taxi or call my friends.
When I arrived at the stand, there were many taxis parked waiting for customers as it was peak hour, just before 5pm. I saw the first taxi had someone sitting in there and I went into the second taxi.
Then my taxi driver told me that I should go to the first taxi. I was puzzled for a while and told him to drive instead. It was only after a few years, I realised that I must have seen ‘something’ in there. So my advice to taxi drivers is if people begin avoiding your car, you might want to consider whether there could be another presence in the car with you.
This story was broadcast on Mr Zhou’s Ghost Stories podcasts on 29th April 2022.
Check out don’t dos during this ghost festival and Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival.