It was a case of so close, yet so far for taxi drivers nationwide as news broke that over 55,000 e-hailing drivers have passed their PSV exam ahead of next month’s enforcement deadline. It seemed like just yesterday that the likes of Grab and MyCar looked like they were struggling under the pressure of getting their drivers to sign up for the licence before the original date of enforcement, which was in July.

We even wrote about how screwed Grabs’s e-hailing service would be, with only 10% of their driver partner fleet passing the exam two days before enforcement. Needless to say, things looked bleak. Taxi drivers were on the cusp of their hard fought victory.

However, the Government, as it tends to always do, threw a curve ball at the eleventh hour by extending the PSV licence deadline by 3 months, giving grab a fighting chance. If you need a video illustration of how it all went down, it was exactly like that scene from Peaky Blinders. You know, this scene:

Anyway, fast forward 2 month’s and 86,789 PSV exams later, and it looks like e-hailing has been saved. More than half of the 86,789 drivers that sat for the exam have passed and you can almost hear the sound of the God knows how many taxi drivers face palming instantaneously.

In the case of Grab driver partners, the company really stepped up their game in ensuring that the process would be as easy and as cost effective as possible. Not only did the company subsidize the cost of the application, it also came up with a daily insurance plan (One of the requirements for a PSV licence is for e-hailing drivers to have a special insurance) that is flexible, and cheap, thus ensuring that their part-time driver partners remained on the platform. Credit where credit’s due.

To the 27,144 drivers who failed, I don’t really know what to say. If Anthony Loke can pass the exam without even studying for it, you guys can do it too! Regardless, there’s still time. The 11th of October is the deadline so best get to it!