Black cab drivers and their representatives boasted today of having 'brought London traffic to a standstill'. They were demonstrating - I ask you! - against a new app which they claim can be used as a meter by minicab drivers.
They've done this several times that I can remember, getting in everyone's way even more than usual for piffling selfish reasons of their own. How can these squits boast about inconveniencing huge numbers of people for such petty reasons? Who do they think they are?
It costs a fair amount to set oneself up as a black cab. The cost includes an arduous, but obviously totally useless, period of study and exploration laughably called 'the knowledge'. Once set up, black cabs are absurdly privileged. Basically they are only for rich people: very expensive.
Of course some are all right but as a species black cab drivers are reactionary and exceptionally boring. They have a very high opinion of themselves but half of them can't drive and three quarters of them don't know their way about and can't read the A to Z.
I think these nasty turds should have their licences taken away to be given to people who can drive and who don't expect special privileges.
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And not just in London is that behaviour displayed.
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If they don't like being on the caught on the back foot, they should make their own app - or join uber.app
Quite frankly it's put me right off them and made them appear more achaic than ever.
Last edited by: Shiny Tailpipes on Wed 11 Jun 14 at 20:44
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>> If they don't like being on the caught on the back foot, they should make
>> their own app - or join uber.app
>> Quite frankly it's put me right off them and made them appear more achaic than
>> ever.
The guy on the radio yesterday when this was stuff was being discussed was doing his trade no favours. Went on and on about how App's booking engine being outside of UK might invalidate mini cabber's insurance.
He couldn't explain why though and treated the (female) presenter with increasing condescension each time he repeated himself.
Hopefully he was just a caller and not an 'official' LTDA spokesman. I fear however he was the latter.
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Similar situation in France.
Licensed cabbies who have had everything their own way for decades - over here they sometimes even have the cheek to charge you for an empty return journey! - have been overtaken by technology and they are just going to have to accept change or go and do something else.
I am not impressed by all this talk of what has to be invested in a cab licence - in France they keep harping on about putting all the money into it because it can one day be surrendered and sold on to provide their pension. Tough luck. The world has moved on.
When I started in the newspaper printing trade I believed I was just the latest iteration of a tradition dating back 500 years that would provide me with a rewarding job for life. It took me about three years (halfway through my apprenticeship) to realise that I could forget all that before I'd even got used to the idea. Any fool could see even then that technology would do away with us and we'd better be prepared to think again. So we did - most of us - and so will they have to.
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Thu 12 Jun 14 at 09:47
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>> have
>> been overtaken by technology and they are just going to have to accept change or
>> go and do something else.
Sad but true.
As unpalatable as it may seem, when life moves on, you have to go with it.
There's no point a company or a State investing in keeping an industry going just for the sake of employment.
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At best they're simply going to put off the change for a short while. The dockers thought they had well paid jobs for life, as did coal miners and newspaper printers.
British Gas are hanging on and the next to go will be black cab drivers and BBC employees.
It's inevitable.
As Westpig says - "when life moves on, you have to go with it"
Anyone seen any gas lamp lighter or fax repair man job vacancies recently ?
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I was in London yesterday evening and it certainly wasn't at standstill.
Apart from a brief moment in Covent Garden when a cab drove into the back of a stationary rickshaw bursting the tyre with an amazingly loud crack and smashing the bicycle wheel to bits!
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I am currently trying to put right a lot of faxed up work.
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"against a new app which they claim can be used as a meter by minicab drivers."
Absolutely, as opposed to re-setting a tripmeter and doing the sum of miles travelled vs cost per mile, which presumably they consider is not using a meter !
"How can these squits boast about inconveniencing huge numbers of people for such petty reasons? Who do they think they are?"
Perhaps Firemen, Tube Drivers, Air traffic controllers, "Waste Disposal Engineers", .. etc. ? (:-
"totally useless, period of study and exploration laughably called 'the knowledge'."
Not quite with you here, - i remember when two things that our capital (even country) was respected for by visitors from abroad were the cabbies knowledge of our capital's streets, and the respect that our policemen had for not needing to carry weapons (yeah, i know about truncheons - but i'm talking firearms, [sadly also, - and water cannon] )
"but half of them can't drive and three quarters of them don't know their way about and can't read the A to Z. "
I bow to your greater knowledge, but why can't i help feeling that maybe this comment has a wider spread than just cab drivers ?!?! (:-
My take on this mirrors Mike Hannons, it's got to be traumatic when your comfortable, secure rug is suddenly pulled out from under you, but it has been happening since the year dot, (printing press, seed drill, tractors, Betamax, - you name it) and it's no use digging your heels in for the past, - hard as it is, you gotta leapfrog to the future .. or die .. aaaargh !
Final thought - surely this means a better deal for the consumer (passenger),? no more "Arabs and Yanks can afford it ", cabbies always wanted a more level playing field, does this not contribute ?
one last throw,
" a ......... rickshaw "
that's progress ........... ? ... innit ??
P.S. Well done AC, you've dragged me off the sofa !!!!!
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Yes cabbies have to move with the times, but there's no denying that new services like this will lower the general standard of cab drivers. The knowledge does require, er, knowledge of London. Something that app-powered drivers won't have.
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There will still be a niche tourist market for a few "genuine" black cabs and cabbies. They can talk in that amusing way they had: "I 'ad that Cable geezer in the back of me cab the other day. 'E said as how ..... "
"Nah mate, it's mor'n me life's werf"
while taking you the long way round.
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"The Knowledge" was useful when all you needed to know was the way to go. Then everybody got Sat Nav and the primary need was to avoid traffic, not know the way.
However, it seems to me that someone who has gone to the effort of doing the knowledge, getting a Black cab, and getting out there, is probably a more responsible bet than some bloke with an iPhone in a Cortina and an afternoon free.
So, on balance, its probably a shame.
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>> P.S. Well done AC, you've dragged me off the sofa !!!!!
>>
>>
I should think he has done well, six posts in four years is pretty good going!
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Don't want to peak too soon !!
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Yesterday a BBC reporter went A to B in a black cab and B to A in an Uber car. Not much to choose in time but Black cab was £11 and Uber was £17, if I remembered the figures right, it was certainly more.
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Not sure what you can infer from that; if it involved a one way system then one direction may have been shorter journey, and if they met a traffic snarl up on the way back it might have taken longer, or any combination of the two.
Edit: Or is it a fixed price for the journey? Not used a taxi for many years.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Fri 13 Jun 14 at 09:30
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AIUI private hire licencing in London prohibits use of a meter and all hires are on basis of a price agreed in advance. The cabbies' argument is that the Uber app, by calculating a distance etc to set the fare, is acting as a meter and breaking the law.
buyingbusinesstravel.com/news/3022555-london-cabbies-and-uber-face-legal-battle-over-taximeter-row
This aspect is going to the High Court.
Here in Northampton Private Hire cars DO have meters. The differentiation from Hackney Carriages is limited to pre-book only/not being allowed to ply for hire.
In fact the whole thing is a mess throughout the country. The Law Commission has considered the situation and made some proposals for new legislation to rationalise it. Taxi drivers are bitterly opposed as evidenced by a rash of window stickers.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 13 Jun 14 at 09:57
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>> Yesterday a BBC reporter went A to B in a black cab and B to A in an Uber car. Not much to
>> choose in time but Black cab was £11 and Uber was £17, if I remembered the figures right, it
>> was certainly more.
I saw something on the BBC on this. They went in an Uber car to begin with and then a black cab. The black cab went a different way and was quicker - but more expensive.
I don't get what the fuss is about. Some black cabs on uber as well.
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My memory is doubtless wrong! I knew one was more than other and I did think it was UBER. Whatever and as ever, only the lawyers are going to make money out of this. Would using Google maps to calculate a route and the costing it at £5 a mile be a "Meter"? Surely that is all UBER is doing - measuring a distance, in advance, and costing it. Not a meter to me!
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I don't think the cabbies will win in Court.
Surely Uber's use of Google Maps is nothing more than a sophisticated mileometer/trip meter, which all cars are required to have by law? You can't ban those. I understand Uber's rates vary with demand (at Uber's choice presumably), but that is not the same as a time/distance meter that black cabs have., and therefore not against the law. Well that's how I see it anyway!
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>> Yesterday a BBC reporter went A to B in a black cab and B to
>> A in an Uber car. Not much to choose in time but Black cab was
>> £11 and Uber was £17, if I remembered the figures right, it was certainly more.
>>
I will apologise if I am wrong, but,
I remembered the figures as being the other way round.
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>>I remembered the figures as being the other way round.
I do too. The reporter also stated 'the black cab was only a little more expensive'. Since when has more than 50% been a little bit?
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When someone else is paying...
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