GrabHitch driver suspended after sending anti-LGBTQ messages to passenger

Grab has temporarily suspended a GrabHitch driver pending investigations into a passenger’s complaint involving abusive messages about LGBTQ stances. 

The distraught passenger took to Reddit on Thursday (Nov 12) with a post about a brush with homophobia while booking a ride under Grab’s social carpooling service.

Under the handle Chronocycle, the Redditor wrote that a driver accepted a request for a ride, but before he even arrived at the pick-up point, he sent strongly-worded messages to the passenger. 

According to Chronocycle, the driver must have somehow seen his passenger’s profile picture, which contained a banner in support of the Ready 4 Repeal movement to abolish Section 377A of the Singapore Penal Code.

Section 377A reads: "Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years."

An article published in The Straits Times in November 2019 included a mention that the Parliament's stance is that Section 377A will not be proactively enforced.

Nevertheless, the driver made his stance against the LGBTQ community quite clear. 

"I was stunned, and could not respond except to cancel the ride. I did not engage him at all, but felt sick to my stomach,” the Redditor wrote. 

“There was no way I was going to board the car of a hostile driver, who at the least would harass me, at worst, potentially put me in danger.” 

The passenger has since made a report about the incident to Grab. 

“My initial emotional response to [the driver’s] message was amusement, but that soon gave way to hurt. As a queer Singaporean, we are forced to accept these microaggressions as we go about our daily lives,” Chronocycle wrote, adding how such acts of homophobia “have a way of happening when you least expect them”. 

Temporarily suspended

In response to AsiaOne’s queries, Grab assured that investigations into the incident are being carried out. 

"Our users' safety is important to us and we have a zero-tolerance policy for those found to have exhibited indecent behaviour, harassment or abuse of any kind on our platform,” said a Grab spokesperson to AsiaOne. 

“We are aware of this incident, and have temporarily suspended the said GrabHitch driver while we investigate the situation."

On Reddit, the passenger followed up with a confirmation that Grab has responded to the complaint and that driver has been temporarily suspended. This was apparently after Grab initially banned the driver from the platform. 

According to the Redditor, Grab will schedule a face-to-face discussion with the driver and educate him on the incident.

”Depending on the outcome of that conversation, we will decide whether we should allow him to continue driving with GrabHitch,” Grab noted to Chronocycle. 

ilyas@asiaone.com