You might want to consider a hyphen, You know, for clarity.
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I’ve not generally experienced this legendary knowledge (although one guy did know where Benny Hill’s house was). They bluff it a bit…
You: “Please take me to the Crown and Anchor in Knightsbridge.”
Cabbie: “That’s just across from the Nag’s Head isn’t it?.”
You: “No I don’t think so”
Cabbie: “Oh yeah, right. Just around the corner from Sainsbury’s then.”
You: “No, not that I recall.”
Cabbie: “Oh, right, right. You’ll want the one near Ealing Cross Station, then.”
You (after checking on your phone): “It’s one block up from the Natural History Museum”
Cabbie: “Oh, yeah, right, of course. That’s where I was headed. I was just checking you didn’t want the other one.”
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Only black cabs can be hailed on the street. If you get a minicab you phone and wait for it to arrive. The last time I used a minicab, I got a text to say the driver had arrived.
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The difference between a black cab and a private hire minicab is something lost to people outside of the U.K.
They were shut down in Japan last year for much the same reasons. This whole “break the law and attack the regulators” thing doesn’t play well in most of the world.
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Like so many government regulations, those seemingly arbitrary limits on entry into the taxi market are basically scar tissue. Most transportation systems cannot make money over the long haul. They either need government subsidies or government restrictions, often both. If you look at US history, there were the post roads, the steamship subsidies, the various maritime subsidies, the railroad subsidies that ran into the tens of billions back in the 19th century when a billion dollars was a lot of money.
Transportation systems with unlimited entry are unprofitable. They go through boom and bust cycles, and no nation can prosper when its transportation system collapses. The taxi restrictions were largely imposed in the 1930s when it became impossible for a taxi operator to make a living in a competitive market. People would buy a car, get a license, then, after losing money for a while, get out of the business. There was no predictable taxi supply, so the government imposed restrictive licensing which worked for a while, then allowed a wealthy elite to capture the system leaving drivers with the dregs and passengers to the devil.
I’ll read that as advice and not as a description of current reality, because cities sure as heck can and do do that, ALL THE TIME
It’s not a difference lost to me though, seeing as I live in the UK. Do you? Have you ever tried to get a cab home at night in London? It used to usually involve 30 mins to an hour waiting outside a minicab office, hence my comment.
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Yes, I definitely mean the can’t of can’t reasonably, not the can’t of can’t physically.
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There are also a whole bunch of requirements such as checking that your driver is not a multiply convicted rapist or that they actually have a driving license. There are minimum standards for the black cab which for example are all wheelchair accessible.
Those things all come with a cost to the operators who are basically more or less self-employed shmoes (certainly a darned sight more self-employed than the Uber drivers are).
Uber conveniently likes to bypass these pesky regulations.
So, yes people can choose between a black cab and someone just driving round with a GPS. I’d rather that they be able to be equally sure that in both cases they’ll get to their destination safely and that the person doing the driving is receiving a reasonable and realistic payment for doing so.
As other people have pointed out they already can make that choice. Black cabs have not been the only choice in London for years.
If Uber want to operate in the UK, they can follow the rules like everyone else.
But that doesn’t suit their business model. Well boo hoo.
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As I understand it these days you can organise your minicab or Black cab needs… via an app.
It’s almost as if Uber don’t actually have a revolutionary business model at all.
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Agreed - the knowledge is a bit of an irrelevancy. They all use GPS more often than not.
You can of course contact TfL directly to whinge about your cabbie.
There’s contact details and everything.
In my experience the quality of service of the alternatives leaves a lot to be desired, and black cabs really aren’t an option due to the price. I guarantee people will be waiting on the streets outside mini cab offices in much greater numbers if Uber is shut down.
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I have followed your instructions and considered the hyphen for some time, but have not achieved clarity. I think I’ll stick to vanilla Zen stuff, thanks.
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Not even for activities that use a limited common resource?
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I suppose that “safe vehicles which can accommodate a passenger” is theoretically a limited resource. In the UK it would be possible to pack every road and car park with vehicles, so densely that not another one can be added.
But I doubt that’s what you are thinking of. What exactly did you have in mind, and why do you think that Big, Politically Connected Companies A, B, and C would be better stewards of that resource than small, independent companies and self-employed workers D through Z?
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As I’ve posted quite often here and on other Uber/taxi threads, it’s quite alright with me that Uber drivers be required to meet those standards.
Anyone who lives in a USA city where every single medallion cab must be accessible, raise your hand. Everyplace I have lived, it’s maybe 15 percent of the fleet (NB - by personal observation).
Using my analogy of choice here, a comparable statement would be: “DRM was imposed on digital media because it was impossible for a musician to make a living in a competitive market”.
I work at a different location every day, and I commute via motorcycle + audio GPS.
The satnav still has quite a way to go before it can match a London cabbie.
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