괜찮아요

Well, apparently I was thinking about this problem these few days because I was more frequently on the road than ever before due to my relatives’ visiting in Singapore. You know what, when I was waiting for a bus last Saturday, I happened to see this family which had been “rejected” by two taxi drivers because they were a family of five people (adults and children). So in the end, the poor dad had to try to wait for a bus or the alternative is to take another cab all by himself.

Which brings me to the question of how big our families (size) should be. If I’m not mistaken (or at least the last that I heard was), the current birth policy goes something like “Two or more, if you can afford it”. Which goes to somewhat signify that married couples are encouraged to have 2 more or children. The thing is, maybe you can argue that when the kids are still young, taking a cab together will not be much of a problem since the 3 kids can squeeze with the mum at the back while the dad sits in the front. But hey, you know what, children do grow up! It will probably come to a point when the policy will see them as teens or youths and ’sorry, the taxi can only take up 4 passengers’.

What’s the best argument when you hope that the citizens won’t be too eager to purchase their own family car but to take public transport; you wish the number of births will increase else the greying population is becoming a threatening number; and yet you have a rule that a taxi should not take up more than 4 passengers (okay, for the maximum comfort of the commuters and for road safety); all these don’t see eye-to-eye that much really.

What is it that we really want? *confused* 

ps: okay, must be fair too — there are some taxi these days, which are slightly larger and so can cater to those with bigger than a family size of four people now, but still, how many of these do we really see?  If we aren’t in a rush at times (or for convenience maybe due to elders in the family or young children), the train and buses work fine of course.