TADA suspends driver after alleged 'racial abuse' of passenger

SINGAPORE: Ride-hailing app TADA on Tuesday (Sep 26) suspended one of its drivers after a video of him allegedly making racist remarks to a passenger made the rounds on social media recently.

The incident came to light after the passenger first wrote on Facebook about her experience.

Posting as "Jan Hoeden", she described how it started with the driver wrongly accusing her of giving him an incorrect route for her trip, before their interaction escalated to what she called "racial abuse".

In the videos, the driver can be heard shouting and at one point saying: "You are India, I am a Chinese. You are the very worst kind ..."

Ms Hoeden, who was with her daughter during the trip, said on Facebook that she was Singaporean Eurasian.

Her Facebook posts were no longer public as of Sunday night.

In response to CNA's queries on Tuesday, TADA said that it has taken "immediate action" to suspend the driver from the platform after a "thorough investigation".

"The driver's remarks that insinuated racial differences are completely unacceptable within TADA's community guidelines and ethos."

The company did not respond to questions about how it would resolve the incident with the passenger.

In December 2021, a driver with another ride-sharing company, Ryde, was suspended after he allegedly told a Muslim woman that she could not listen to prayers as it would change the "energy" in the car.

A string of racially charged incidents played out in Singapore that same year, including a former polytechnic lecturer telling a couple that it was “such a disgrace, Indian man with a Chinese girl”.

During his National Day Rally speech in 2021, Prime 'Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced plans to introduce a new racial harmony law.

The Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act will include “softer” measures that can order someone who has caused offence to stop doing it, and to make amends by learning more about the other race and mending ties with them, Mr Lee said then.