18-07-2025
Me And My Car: The taxi-driving YouTuber
Vlogger and taxi driver Edward Jui said he is still a newbie compared with senior cabbies with at least a decade's worth of experience.
SINGAPORE – The person behind the YouTube channel @LazyCabbie is anything but idle, because Mr Eddie Jui, 48, works day and night.
In between his daily 10-plus hours on the road looking for fares, he devotes time to film and edit videos, and respond to online comments.
LazyCabbie has more than 6,000 subscribers and 36 videos as at July 17, and has clocked over 360,000 views since launching in mid-April.
There is a certain cinematic quality to Mr Jui's videos. Each episode typically starts with a stylish introduction, such as a scene off the streets or a stroll through a garden.
He then walks into the frame to give insights on the taxi trade, share his reactions to recent news or offer food recommendations.
His style is casual and relatable, much like a friendly cabby talking to a passenger during a ride.
Mr Jui stresses that the filming is never done when he is ferrying passengers and 'only during my lull period'.
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In the 2½ years he has driven his Toyota Prius taxi, he has covered more than 120,000km. This is the equivalent of nearly 10 years of mileage for a private car in Singapore.
The Prius has never missed a beat, other than on two occasions when it was rear-ended and had to be sent to the workshop.
The taxi still seemed to be in decent shape when Mr Jui drove to the interview with The Straits Times.
He made the switch to be a driver when he needed money urgently to settle business debts after winding down his intellectual property rights agency, which provides trademark services.
He drove a private-hire car for about a year before becoming a part-time taxi driver, renting a cab from other drivers. After that, he got his own taxi.
Mr Jui said he is still a newbie compared with senior cabbies with at least a decade's worth of experience.
He intends to rent another Prius when the current contract with transport company ComfortDelGro expires in February 2026. He will take out a new taxi instead of paying less for a used one, to avoid having to deal with breakdowns.
Hardworking: Mr Eddie Jui's Prius has covered more than 120,000km in 2½ years without breaking down.
ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
Taxis are charged a daily rental, and Mr Jui said he is usually able to cover the rent with five to six hours of driving a day. He mainly uses two ride-hailing platforms: Zig, which is owned by ComfortDelGro, and Grab, to get jobs.
His workday starts at 5am, and he stays on the road until 9am. The downtime away from driving the taxi is spent on filming and being with his nine-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son. He is back on the road again from 4 to 9pm.
He keeps his lunch break short to carve out time for creating video content.
It used to take him up to six hours to film and edit a video lasting no longer than eight minutes. The filming alone takes two to three hours, for him to get the right angles.
He has managed to cut editing time down to around an hour, and he edits a couple of videos at one go, spending five hours or so in one sitting.
Mr Jui's 45-year-old wife, who is a clinic manager, came up with the name for the channel. She was also the one who encouraged him to make videos, instead of gaming, which he said he was addicted to before he started the channel to 'escape reality'.
He does what he can to involve his family, from discussing story ideas with his wife to roping in their children to look at the channel's analytics data and respond to comments on his YouTube channel.
Sieving through the comments and responding to negative ones with the kids are opportunities for them to learn about dealing with cyberbullies, he figured. He reads every comment and replies to them.
His channel is gaining popularity quickly, enough for YouTube to pay him for the views a month after LazyCabbie was launched. He declined to disclose exactly how much he has received from the streaming platform, but said it was an encouraging start.
Calling his perspective as a taxi driver the 'special sauce' for his channel, Mr Jui does not see himself giving up the car keys to be a full-time content creator.
Instead, he is thinking of ways to make the content more unique, while broadening its appeal, so it speaks not just to fellow drivers or those who may be curious about the life of a taxi driver.
Besides casual viewers who post encouraging messages, thanking him for making the videos, Mr Jui also gets thoughtful comments from other taxi drivers, who see the channel as a platform to pour their hearts out with lengthy messages.
One of the most memorable comments he got was being called 'a bridge between the drivers and the people outside who see us differently'.
'We (taxi drivers) meet many passengers, but a lot of the time, we are just lonely people because there are no peers or colleagues to talk to.'
Listen to the podcast here:
What's in the boot?
Under the boot floor: An air pump, a folding chair, a vacuum cleaner and a tyre jack.
PHOTO: EDDIE JUI
