Following a viral Twitter chain regarding eerie encounters with a Bangkok cabbie who appeared to be “haunted” by spirits in his car, the accused driver has told authorities he was only acting scared to stop passengers from picking their noses in his vehicle.
Wait, what?
After CheezeBaek vented to Twitter on Sunday about a spooky taxi driver that mystically mumbled “I’m so scared” and “I’m about to cry” for the length of his ride, 17 other netizens spoke out about similar experiences — causing some to question the man’s mental health.
Yesterday, the cabbie, identified only as Owat, was summoned to the Department of Land Transport, in order to tell his side of the story.
“I’d like to apologize to everyone about this,” the taxi driver said in an interview that was inexplicably broadcast on television. “I only pretended to be scared of ghosts because… the passengers have no manners.”
In a bizarre statement — which has had the unfortunate side effect of getting officials to join netizens in questioning his mental health — the driver claims to have gotten fed up with passengers who “bully him” by picking their noses in the car, so he decided to start standing up for himself.
“In the 10 years I’ve driven a taxi, a lot of people come into my cab and pretend to pick their nose — it’s not just one person, so many different people do it. If I don’t say anything, they just keep picking their noses.”
In regards to asking passengers to leave payment in a bowl, the driver explained that he wouldn’t dare touch the money post-nose pick. Which, is fair, we guess.
“I usually deposit dirty money into the bank in order to take new bills out,” he explained to reporters.
Meanwhile, Land Transport Director Sukree Jarubhumi said his department has received three to four complaints against Owat, and decided that the cabbie will be sent for a psychological evaluation.
His public driving license, which is about to expire next month, has been temporarily suspended. In order to renew the license, the man must pass both a psych evaluation administered by a doctor and a criminal history check.
In the cabbie’s defense, picking your nose in public, which some seem to think is a national phenomenon is pretty gross.
Owat is not the first cabbie who made the news for not being able to tolerate passengers’ unhygienic habits, another driver last year kicked a Thai woman out of his car for allegedly having bad breath.
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