Whose right to refuse.
For a middle class family like mines, Autorickshaws are common means of transport. But, often getting one when you it, can be a nightmare, thanks to the attitudes of the Autorickshaw drivers.
Today, was a really cold morning and I went to reach my sister, Elvira to the near by rickshaw stand or at least to the main road on my scooter, from where she and my mom (who walks the 5-10 distance) can get a rick, to go to college. Elvira is handicapped and even walking the 5 - 10 mins distance is painfully tiresome for her, therefore I have to take her on my scooter.
To our luck (good or bad), we found a rick, before getting on to the main road where the rickshaw stand is. At first the driver gave me a querying look, to find out where we would like to go, but when i told it was just till S.V road, he just refused. And, when I informed him, his meter was flagged for hire and he can't refuse, he told me he had a fixed fare for saki naka.
I got into an argument and, even made my mom and sister to board the rick. But seeing that driver wouldn't budge and I was just on the verge of rasing my hands, my mom decided to board another rick that came around.
I just couldn't let that go, and decided I should wait by that rick and if I could inform his "fixed fare to saki naka" what an ass that rickshaw driver was, probably that person MAY decide to take another rick.
The fare came around, and I told her, ma'am this guy has refused a fare of a lady with a handicapped child and I think you shouldn't, for this reason, board this rick, but another. But that girl, who as she claimed, late for work, feared that the other rickshaw drivers may doze off on the highway.
We often choose convinence over standing up for whats our right. and mind you we do pay a price for it, in this case. The rickshaw driver has strengthened his belief that he has the right to refuse, which only spells longer waits for a rick that would go your way and this happens more with women and children.
We can always take another rick, but if we all insist on our right, after all we are paying a fare and not demanding a free ride; Slowly but steadly we can teach this group, to follow the law. But we often find it more convienient to be fence sitters or hail another rick.
This attitude of rickshaw driver, especially the young ones of choosing a fare based on their whims, is a sign of bad things to come, who knows next it would be the scrapping of the meter system, similar to places like Mira Road, where they charge a fixed rate, starting from Rs. 20, which is more than twice of what the actual fare would have been.
It takes a little time and can get ugly at times, but if everybody stopped and insisted that enough is enough and auto rick shaw drivers even with their fancy unions and political nexus would have to cave in because they are on the wrong side of the law. And probably someday, they would know that if they wanted to be treated like public transport and go on strikes for increasing fares or even stop new bus services or private transport companies that compete with them, they would have to be more responsible.