When you are a ride-hailing driver you tend to meet all sorts of people from all walks of life who would be lucky enough to get into your car and for a moment, you are sharing a part of their lives. Even if they don’t talk to you! This man who has been a Grab driver for some time garnered attention recently when his simple act of kindness towards some foreign passengers went viral.
According to his Facebook post, Fadhli Sahar wrote about his experience sending an Indian couple from Singapore to a wedding in early August who was using Grab services in Malaysia for the first time.
When the couple got into the car at Empire Hotel in Subang, he clarified that the address was at Main Place at USJ 21 but the couple said it was held at their cousin’s home.
He said, “I felt strange because the address that they keyed in showed the shopping mall but when I asked the passengers, they weren’t sure as they had just copied and pasted the address in the app. Thinking that their relative’s house may be near to Main Place, I drove on.”
“When I reached the shopping mall, the passengers were surprised and thought that I had gotten lost. I told them that I followed my GPS of their drop-off location, which led me to this place. They were just as confused so I asked them to let me see the address as they were not familiar with the place.”
It was then that Fadhli realised they had copied and pasted the wrong details as the cousin’s house number was 21. The app must have shown the default nearest location, USJ 21 instead.
The couple panicked when he told them that they had the wrong address as they were lost in an unfamiliar place. That was when Fadhli decided to help them and told them, “It’s okay, sir. I’ll drop you at the correct address instead.” He turned off his Grab driver app and sent them to the address ‘offline’ because he wanted to help them.
The distance from USJ 21 to USJ 6 was only 5km, so he just told his passengers that he would charge an additional RM5 on top of the original fare, which brought the total to RM20. When they arrived at the destination, the couple gave him a RM50 note but when he tried to give them the change, they refused.
They said, “It’s okay. RM20 for the ride. RM30 for your kindness. Your kindness is more expensive than the fare.”
Fadhli also shared another story in his post where the couple’s kindness influenced him to pay it forward when he got into a minor accident in Glenmarie after that. He praised the other driver for keeping calm and for forgiving him for damaging their car.
The driver only requested Fadhli to pay for the slight damages and that was when he remembered the Singaporean couple’s kindness and decided to give the man more money than was needed to cover the damages incurred.
He ended his post by reminding people to always appreciate the little acts of kindness they experienced by saying, “Having a good attitude and being polite is more valuable than having all the riches in the world because it is so rare these days. So, it is important to appreciate those who treat us with cordiality and courtesy.”
Kudos to Fadhli for being so helpful! Remember to always be polite and kind human beings!
Also read: Kind S’porean Helps Old Man Who Was Lost and Had Forgotten His Own Name