Abang Driver Urge S’poreans To Stop Donating To Him Cuz He Never Asked For It & It Might Be Scammers

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’d have known about the GO-JEK driver who was accused of kidnapping a rider.

Allegedly because she doesn’t want to pay the $2 ERP.

Here’s a recap of the incident for those who haven’t been following it so far:

Facebook user Kamaruzzaman Bin Abdul Latiff uploaded a video into Go-Jek Singapore Community group, relating an experience that has since garnered over 42K Shares in less than 24 hours.

In the video, a woman was seen scolding the driver, allegedly for not helping her to avoid the ERP.

Harsh words were exchanged and things heated up to the point that the woman accused the driver and an AETOS officer of being racist.

So netizens jumped in on the issue, hated the woman and made memes of the incident.

The end. Is it, really?

Nope, not so fast.

Apparently, the driver has landed in hot soup for that singular action of uploading a video.

Driver in trouble with LTA

So, my eagle-eyed colleague was following up on the news when he spotted two different things that could potentially land the driver in hot soup.

One is the fact that he had leaked the footage online.

Private hire car drivers can have an inward-facing camera to film the passenger, but the footage can only be used for official investigation: it should never be uploaded to social media sites.

And second, is the fact that the woman was seen in the video to not be wearing her seatbelt.

Now, while some might think that it’s the lady who’s going to get into trouble, the fact remains that in Singapore driving laws, it’s the driver who will get punished for this offence.

The driver will receive 3 demerit points and a fine of $120 as well.

Save Abang Job

If you had watched the video and read about how he had trouble sleeping after the incident, you’d probably feel for him.

If not, you’re probably someone who microwaves super cute puppies for laughs.

So it came as no surprise that Singaporeans once again turned to the power of many to try and help save the driver’s ricebowl.

Image: Screengrab from change.org

Yup. Sign a petition.

At the time of writing, the petition has 61,507 signatures, and it’s still growing pretty consistently.

If you haven’t known, the driver’s actions might just see him suspended and losing his Private-hire Driving Vocational Licence (PDVL).

The petition hopes to convince the Land Transport Authority (LTA) not to do that.

“Abang has three children and is the sole breadwinner of his family. The loss of income during the period of possible suspension will hit his finances hard.”

People Are Donating To The Petition As Well

All sounds pretty good on the straight and narrow, right?

Except, there are people who are donating to the petition as well.

Facebook User Zarina Jaffar took to Facebook to clarify that the driver knows nothing about the donations that’s supposedly for him, not does he know who is asking for it on his behalf.

It was added that the donations go to the petition’s website and not the ones who started the petition.

Mr Kamaruzzaman told netizens to stop donating to him.

“(Please) stop the donation someone is trying to cheat (you) guys.”

In other news, the interview with LTA went pretty well, according to Mr Kamaruzzaman, and he’s allowed to continue driving for GOJEK while undergoing investigations.