By Karen Wong

JUST because absent-minded passengers leave their belongings behind doesn't mean that cabbies can keep them.

The proper thing to do is to return them to the passengers or hand them to their taxi companies.

And if crooked cabbies think they can get off lightly if they are caught keeping their passengers' belongings, they are wrong.

In a landmark ruling, Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong warned that cabbies who dishonestly misappropriate their passengers' property will likely face jail terms.

He set the sentencing benchmark when he gave his reasons for setting aside the initial fine of $6,000 for cabby Neo Boon Seng, sending him to jail for three weeks instead.

In his judgment published earlier this week, CJ Chan explained: 'The reason is that a taxi driver is in a special position vis-a-vis his passenger.

'The taxi driver provides a transport service to the passenger for a fee and a passenger, in purchasing the service, not only entrusts the safety of his person but also custody of his property to the taxi driver during the journey.

'If the taxi driver finds lost property in the taxi, he should return it to the passenger if he knows who he is and where he lives.

'If he does not have such knowledge, he should place the goods within a reasonable time with the taxi company.

'At the very least, a taxi driver has a legal obligation not to take his passenger's property and, in my opinion, this duty should be enforced strictly and vigorously.'

Therefore, he added, the benchmark sentence for cabbies who steal their passengers' things, unless the items are really insignificant, would be a jail term.

The court had heard that on 20 June last year, a Singaporean couple returning from Hong Kong flagged down Neo's SMRT taxi for their home in Bukit Timah.

After loading some luggage in the taxi's boot, Mr Gerard William Rodrigues, 60, the executive vice-president of an electronics components company, placed a briefcase, a haversack and a bottle of wine on the front passenger seat.

The briefcase contained a laptop, brand-name pens and spectacles, cash in various currencies, as well as MrRodrigues' passport, documents, company keys and pass.

The haversack contained three pairs of shoes. The items cost $11,661.

When they arrived at their Vanda Avenue home, the couple unloaded the suitcases from the boot but forgot about the items on the front seat.

Mr Rodrigues later discovered the loss and called SMRT, which sent out a message to its cabbies.

After waiting for about two hours, he reported the loss to the police.

It turned out that the next day, Neo went through the items and kept the cash, laptop, haversack and wine.

That night, police raided his home. All the items were recovered, except for the pens, the spectacles, the passport and US$1,000 ($1,300) worth of currency.

It was not known how the police had tracked down the crooked cabbie.

CJ Chan remarked that it was rather surprising there has been no previous reported sentencing precedent for such cases.

He said: 'The answer may well be that, in the past, taxi drivers have always acted in an exemplary manner by either returning lost property to their passengers or depositing the property with the taxi companies.

NIPPED IN THE BUD

'If this surmise is correct, then it is all the more necessary that any incipient problem of taxi drivers misappropriating their passengers' property should be nipped in the bud.

'The courts need to signal to taxi drivers that they will face a custodial sentence if they are convicted of this type of offence.'

He noted that the taxi industry is a pillar of Singapore's public transport system with an average daily ridership of more than 900,000.

'The performance of a public service, especially one which is exclusive to one group of service providers, necessarily demands that it be done with a high level of honesty and care for the customers.'

He added: 'An increase in instances of dishonest conduct on the part of taxi drivers in relation to property belonging to passengers would certainly affect Singapore's well-earned reputation for integrity in the provision of public services generally.'

CJ Chan noted that the victim in this case waited two hours before reporting the loss to the police 'because he had expected, and it was a legitimate expectation based on the reputation of our taxi service, that his property would be returned shortly'.

Thousands of items left behind in cabs

SMRT Taxis does not condone dishonest behaviour by its taxi drivers and will not hesitate to take disciplinary action against them, said its spokesman.

'This is the first case of theft at SMRT Taxis. We regret the unpleasant experience caused to the affected passenger as a result of this incident,' she told The New Paper on Thursday.

She added that Neo had joined SMRT Taxis, which has about 3,000 taxis, on 1 Oct 2003, and had a good track record before this incident.

He was suspended from driving in June last year and was terminated last September.

She added: 'We encourage taxi drivers to check with passengers at the point of alighting that they have not left any items behind.'

If they discover an item left behind in the taxi, they are required to return the items to the passengers or to their office for follow-up.

'This is regularly communicated to our drivers when they attend our compulsory customer service course and is also reinforced in our newsletter, monthly bulletins as well as dialogue sessions.'

Last year, she added, the recovery rate for lost-and-found items was about 33 per cent a month.

ComfortDelGro is the largest taxi operator here with about 15,000 taxis.

Its spokesman, Ms Tammy Tan, said more than 27,700 items left behind in taxis were turned in by cabbies last year. This works out to an average of 76 items a day. And 86 per cent were claimed by their rightful owners.

This article was first published in The New Paper on June 21, 2008.