In protest of app-based ride hailing services like Uber and GrabCar, a group of taxi drivers congregated and parked their vehicles outside the Fahrenreit 88 shopping mall along Jalan Bukit Bintang. The morning-afternoon incident caused access to the road to be blocked, resulting in a severe traffic jam.
For now, no taxi organisation has claimed responsibility for holding the impromptu (and inconvenient) protest. However, such an act may have been propagated by a recent decision from the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) not to ban these ride-sharing services.
In similar fashion, Indonesia cabbies held a protest rally in Jakarta not too long ago, demanding the government ban Uber and Grab. In a response, the Indonesia government stated that both companies must work with a local transport business and register their cars by the end of May if they want to continue operating.
We’ll continue to update this story as more information come in. What are your thoughts on the continued struggle between cabbies and ride-sharing services here in Malaysia? Do you think both sides can co-exist, or can only one triumph? Let us know in the comments below.
@ibrahimhalim13 road clear, some of the drivers hauled up by @pdrm @paultan @paultantk
— aduanSPAD 1800887723 (@aduanSPAD) 29 March 2016
UPDATE: According to a report by The Star, the police attempted to disperse the protest group at 11.30 am. However, the taxi drivers refused to budge, resulting in several arrests being made, including that of Malaysian Taxi Driver Transformation Association deputy president Kamarudin Mohd Hussain. However, Mohd Hussain said he was not the organiser of the protest, but merely there to support the gathering.
Aside from Mohd Hussain, three other taxi drivers were also arrested at the scene. The SPAD have said that they are aware of the situation and will issue an official statement soon. For now, the commission stated that the gathering has been cleared from Jalan Bukit Bintang, according to the Twitter post above.
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This is self-ignorant, idiotic behavior. Why don’t they re-look at themselves on the quality and how they behave on the road and customers. This will not happen if you guys up your game. If uber drivers can do it, why don’t you? Other people have lives and work to get to, and these bunch of bananas just got to get themselves into trouble. Well done!
these hooligans should be behind bars.
what right do they have to cause unschedule protests.
i don’t see any arrests being made too.
Why’s the logic??? Taxi drivers protest against Uber… Go settle with SPAD and stop wasting Rakyat time. County not belong to gangsters taxi drivers !!! This just make others good taxi drivers suffer too !
Welcome to Malaysia
where are all the Red Shirt protestors? Now where are they hiding? The last they protested infront of Tun’s Perdana office. Now where are they?
I appeal to all the red shirt protestors, mari lah tolong di KL hari ini.
And especially the butt dancers who like to goyang infront of Ambiga’s house.
Where are these Red Shirt protestors?
So free to protest. Not free to work honestly. Disturbing the millions of honest Klang Valley workers sturggling everyday for a better life. How would they like it if I parked my car in front of their taxi lines at klcc everyday and protest? In my opinion taxi drivers are a threat to wawasan 2020 and national security please disband the organisation! grabcar and uber is more than capable of moving us! if you agree give this a thumbs up!
Everybody know the which party supporting this taxi driver demo…go search last demo at Padang Merbok.
kzm tak habis habis blame evrything on opposition. Get a life bro
These are all lazy people, used to the tongkat. Now, still want tongkat. Do you see pple complaining Samsung is overtaking them? they work harder to beat Samsung.
Kerja kuat sikit lah brader
When monkeys jumping on the streets, people understand what i said “get a car!”
Question for IGP. this protest caused a lot of losses in productivity. About few million ringgit in losses. Don’t you think this is a national security issue ie SOSMA?
Make each and every teksi gangster give up his lesen. There is a long queue of people waiting to be teksi drivers.
Infact if tomorrow every single teksi driver give up his lesen, within a week, every single klang valley teksi driver can be replaced.
No taxis are indispensible
These taxi drivers only represent few hundred votes. Govt shouldn’t care so much about their rice bowl.
Hah?? You don’t know who owns the most taxi permits and biggest taxi companies?
It is such a big fight now. You see, Uber is Government. Yes, Khazanah has invested heavily in Uber. Go and google and see for yourself. So, Uber got the backing of the Government.
But teksi gangsters got the backing of SPAD chairman. Because SPAD chairman’s wife hold so many teksi licence and teksi companies.
So, there is so much of conflict of Interest now. The SPAD chairman, who earns 6 figure pay per month (not per year) don’t know what to do. To listen to the Government (who backs Uber) or to listen to his wife?
Who do you think will win? Government or Wife?
They are lazy like hell. Don’t work hard and just protest only they know. malas betul.
Morning start their day 8 am.
8am – immediately eat nasi lemak with fellow drivers
9am – finish nasi lemak and tired. Go to sleep under a tree
10am – still sleeping with fellow teksi drivers
11am – get up and drive little while looking for passengers
12pm – lunch time. All eat at the gerai ayam masak merah with lots of kerang
1pm – finish makan. Tired cause banyak lemak makan
1pm to 3 pm park- again under a tree and sleep
3pm to 5 pm – look again for customers
5pm – go home and sleep
you work like this and still want to be jealous of Uber and Grabcar?
Where is the IGP and PDRM. Some cases, they are so rajin. Immediately can go and investigate. So where is the polis now?
Situations like this, near KLCC, with the threat of terrorist and bombs going around, I find it hard to understand why PDRM could not send 10 officers to the scene in 5 minutes including helicopter support.
If I was IGP, I will arrest all the drivers on the spot for causing a public danger. If basic thing like this IGP cannot disperse, how to handle bigger issues?
You could have sent 10 polis guys on kap chai to go through traffic and settle the matter.
Where is the Twin Towwer and KLCC auxilarry polis? Buat apa abang abang polis kat twin tower?
Twin tower got hundreds of auxilarry polis. they could have gone to BB in a second to help out the incident?
I wonder what were they doing? Infact BB got so many plain clothes polis man due to the recent threats of attacks to BB. Where were they?
IGP, are you doing your job?
SPAD existence is redundant to transport minister and JPJ, should shut it down and close case.
I’m pretty sure they got support from anti govt org..check who was at last demo padang Merbok or see who sent memorandum to SPAD.
Where are the FRU?? Where is the tear gas??? You mean this “protest” has a permit??? That were not given to other peaceful protests?
yeah..
can see traffic police in the scene, will those bananas receive a summon for their effort?
Stop the inappropriate banana word usage. It is not funny like baby with afro.
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Gtfo. These guys a literally criminals right now if we’re going M’sian law, you’re telling people to respect criminals now? Get off your high horse, I’ll call them whatever I damn well please.
Banana is not an insulting word nor it is funny. Have you seen the billboard where they photoshop an afro onto the baby’s head? It’s not funny.
You are definitely has higher class banana
I totally agree. I had numerous issues where the taxis refuse to pick you at bukit bintang during peak hours because they wanted to avoid busy areas around the city. Very rude and arrogant too. If they do pick up its 100% then metered. They tell you meter not applicable and your inside the car already. But name calling not maybe to right.
OMG…Malu betul ….puihhh..
Banana is not an insulting word. Insulting is when you think a baby wearing an afro is funny
suspend their drivers license and close case..they are riots creators
Stupid is as stupid does.
PDRM pls lock up all these samseng under security act!
Better service..better taxi..thats.whyla..u all know what i mean
pro and cons….it is good to regulate the uber car and driver so they are “safe”.
This is Malaysia la.. “regulate” prob means, you better have permit. And permit will only go to macai. You go rent permit from them. Or other means to line pockets first.
Remember the stupid 4G lesen? Given to non-mobile company WTF. But don’t give to DiGi who applied. Then DiGi have to rent from macai company.
Where are the authorities and what are they going to do about this? This taxi Drivers thy think they are above the law and can do what they like. Catch every one of them and revoke their taxi license. This is getting out of hand and how can they just block up a public road as and when they like to protest. This should be considered an illegal gathering and the police should come out address the public what action they are going to take against these idiots who think they are the king of the road and do what they like
If you can’t beat them, join them but I think these cabbies brains are too small to even think of jumping ship to save their rice bowls. Oh well hope another cabbie bites the dust as Uber continues its march to glory.
Not they don’t want to join Uber/GC. They even don’t know what is Android, iOS, Waze and GPS. Apps can’t tipu meter as well, that’s the reason.
Nobody would give them the slightest pity, thanks to their consistently bad service of not using meter, refusing pickup and so on.
The consumers do not want your service, go find something else to do. I heard the oil palm estates need people…
Congrats on making your whole customer market angry.
Even if UBer or Grabcar gets banned now. We won’t forget your stupidity trying to cause havoc in KL.
My office is effected. Had to postpone all my meetings.
haiz..now i know what taxi driver knows..is block here block there.. you think yout grandfathers road ah?
Illegal gathering with no permit, same as those for the red shirt and bersih rally. All to be chained and brought to the lockup
This is not the same as Bersih rally,at least Bersih rally applied for permit, informed the citizen earlier for the event and took place during weekends (to avoid disturbance during working days).
But Bersih still do it at Dataran Merdeka even though the polis tell them dun cuz organisers need to get it ready for Merdeka celebrations.
In the end, still illegal gathering and broke rules. So no different than them taximen.
Haha don’t get me wrong….I went to bersih and support the opposition…just saying that the same treatment wasn’t given by the police despite the motive being the same….
Uncivilized and selfish morons thinking only for and about themselves. Great showcase of mentality… no surprise no one can reason with them since they are way too stupid to understand.
Better yet, a hapless traffic cop(s) who cannot do anything to avert the situation. Police here are hopeless… no authority and instead of assisting, they just leave it be. Mentality and attitude similar to taxi drivers – no respect.
Support for Uber and GrabCar just went up 100X thanks to this backfired and stupid act of protest.
it will be nice if the Penang lorry driver can ram all these taxis & drivers and open the path
Dump the taxi and drive for Grap or Uber…
So much energy to protest, might as well spend it on how to improve your services. Your dirty (cigarette) smelly car and thuggish behaviour are the main reason why people prefer to use ride-sharing services. If your car is clean and your service is good, ride-sharing services are more difficult to survive.
Why they dun do it in front of agong place or PM OFFICE. By sure their cabs will be demolish straight away.Their behaviour is selfish as now they behave like road thugs. I won’t take a teksi again coz I always been rejected by their so called no jalan meter rule and also time table rule where if 5pm is no jalan city rule. See what can u do by just one day block BB…do it for 1 or 2 months…see what can they get…Stupid Teksi drivers who are there.
thanks to uber. now i pay half the fare and i travel comfortably.
things would be more ‘different’ if theres a blocked Lorry in the end of it..
Just burn all those taxis.
where’s the guy that uses the lorry to crash into cars in penang?
we need him here in Bukit bintang to flatten all those taxis blocking the road.
Release the beast!
YES!!! Sir, you are damn right !! Flatten these taxi and scums together to become Bukit Bintang Pizza !
Someone should sue these people and ask for compensation for loss of business and productivity for these lawless road hogs.
Feels bad for the people affected by this situation; not for the brainless taxi people.
Police ask them to move also don’t want. These sort of people shouldn’t be called taxi drivers, but gangster drivers.
This is just a group of paid driver to do the protest.
The one that impacted was the license holder who is earning millions a month just by rent out the taxi license.
they are just some uneducated scumbag terrorizing public road! Everyone knew Taxi driver bad behavior… It’s world reknown.
since Gov will start regulate Uber, Taxi driver should quit, return their rented Taxi back. And start use his own car and join Uber. Jom Uber!
Traffic police should have towed the car away and charged them with rioting as they create unrest to the public and blocking traffic..
Public n tourist got fed up with taxis..on many malaysian experience and occassions..
1.u ask for a service they demand not to go..giving reasons traffic jammed n asking for extra payments…fed up with these culprits
2.tourist getting conned n thrown out of the car
3.con taxi drivers scolding people/customers
4.many more cases…certain ethnics drivers spoil the good ones
Join Uber/Grab…bcoz Apps meter reading dont lie..from the very first order/ride
taxi drivers in malaysia is worst scum in the world. I hope they burn in hell 100x…hhahahahahh
Neh…Indonesian taxi even worst they pukul the Grab car driver. France taxi, they burnt Uber car. Brazil taxi damage Uber car.
I oso posted a comment about what happened in other countries as well, but din seem to get thru. Urs did.
Anyways, so now other pipu can see that our protest is pussy compared to them. We shud bersyukur cuz no one got hurt
Losers always blame others, always..And .if u try to teach a loser how to win and chg his destiny, u will get scolded back instead of grattitude
this is why i take UBER always, malaysia taxi driver are sucks !!! gangster attitude … chop customer and drive like a idiot…
Got solution to current taxi drivers: Quit being association taxi driver. Join Uber or Grab car. Use own car to fetch customers. Earn more, feel happier, no need to cause problems to other road users if they are causing it. Wait for SPAD & government to legalize Uber Or Grabcar. Change mindset. Finish story.
Reading all this comments is pretty interesting. How often do we look into ourselves and look what we can do for this situation, I’m not siding anyone. But hey, who has cause the laziness in these taxi drivers? And what are we doing to change the situation than having the same kind of situation where this kind of stuff happened where the root of the problems are from some conflict of interest with the people who has the authority and responsibility that wants money? If all the people who has the power care is their own pocket, what are we doing about it? Well, I thought the protest is plain selfish act that is lazy and stupid. We can’t really blame the taxi drivers when our big time world wide famous country leader has it in him to. Good leader produce good result and good culture, bad leader… you all got eyes to see la. Welcome to Malaysia!
UBER/GRABCAR and taxi drivers are only normal people and very hardworking just to earn a living in this difficult situation. But government leaders and companies are getting money out of them. Taxi driver have to pay permit, car rental and at the same time they need to follow SPAD “nak cari salah” rules. While, their “enemy in business” i.e UBER/GRABCAR drivers have to face risk of getting caught, fined with thousand of ringgit and their private car confiscated. Some of the drivers might not aware or clouded on these consequences when the company representative blind claimed that GRABCAR/UBER is operated in a grey area as far as the law as concern.
Government that should serve the people not really work that way in the Capitalist world, but they would rather to see drivers from both side clash each other until one of them “died” or putting more rules and regulations to get more money from rakyat.
If until now you think that you have selected leaders that rules from, by and to the people, you are wrong about it. All that important are only benefit and capital.
I am totally in love with grabcar now. From my workplace in pj to midvalley only cost me rm8. Nothing can beat that. If u take taxi then for sure the fare would be billions. Ok i’m exaggerating here.