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When I was younger, driving a cab gave me the luxury of security for myself and my family, of never having to be fearful that I could be laid off at any old time, or have my pay cut.
Boohoo, welcome to the real world.
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The cabbies' war on sharing the road with anyone at all receives another setback:
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I’m inclined to agree regarding his general tone – Cabbies come across as rather tone-deaf (similar to tube drivers) when they harp on about what honest hard-working lads they are and conspicuously omit the fact that they’re earning well above national average wage for what is a pretty low-skilled job.
However, I agree with his point about the erosion of stable jobs to be replaced by zero-hours style contracts. I think this is generally damaging to society and appears to be a creeping trend. Every Uber cab I’ve ever taken (admittedly not a huge sample) has been driven by an immigrant. I’d guess that’s because they are more willing to slog their guts out for unsecure low-paid work because in the general picture of their life experience that still looks like a pretty decent deal. I don’t think it’s something we should aspire to as a society though. Insecure jobs means people need to fall back on the state when they can’t get work. We indirectly pay for that in taxes (as well as the non-financial costs) and Uber (or whoever) creams off profit at our expense.
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Bit of a sweeping generalisation.
Lots of Cabbies do take card payment. The reluctance is probably less to do with tax and more to do with the fact the platform they have to use takes a large cut.
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Every Uber cab I’ve ever taken (admittedly not a huge sample) has been driven by an immigrant.
I've had that in London, apart from the one lad who was born & raised Brit. Always been driven by old boys in Bristol though, proper Somerset folk. The best one was on NYD this year.
Me: Did you have a good New Year's Eve?
Him: When? -
http://www.lfgss.com/comments/12861286/
With GM now oiling Lyft we'll, I suspect, see a similar play book by Ford and other car makers encouraging more drivers and not less. Geography test? English language requirements? Once the drivers are machines those problems shall be solved. -
Yes quite a few times. They've always been very accommodating. UberXL obvs.
Anyone ever used uber as a courier?
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Cheers, it's happened on Tue, I ended up booking 1 as there was no Addison Lee available at all. I called the driver as soon as booking went through, driver was cool about the bike, not so cool about the cat. So I ended up with an Addison Lee on way back.
You might ask why a cat and a bike? Had to leave the cat at the vet for the day and had places to go to after, hence cat and bike... The Addison Lee driver was more OK than the Uber driver with this weird combo...
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Investors better be patient.
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The minicab empire strikes back:
(It is, of course, nonsense to claim that it's only taken three months to get to this point, as it's taken decades to build up London's minicabbery, just as Uber was using/re-purposing existing resources when it started; it's all a big game of deckchairs.)
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Utter bullshit, cabbies do no CPC development work unlike lorry drivers, emergency service drivers do a load of extra training. Cabbies are not the best trained drivers on the city streets.
chief executive, Ashok Sinha, and general secretary of the LTDA, Steve McNamara.
McNamara, said:
“As cabbies, we often get a bad press for not looking out for cyclists. We are, however, the best trained drivers on the city streets, recognizing the need to share the streets with all users and are always looking to increase the safety of our passengers, pedestrians and cyclists. Far from being our adversaries, cyclists are regular customers, with cabbies often accepting both bike and rider in the back of a cab when circumstances make cycling impossible. We will be promoting the ‘take care of cyclists’ message to all of our members, and plan to train some of the City of London drivers in cycle skills session later this year. ”
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Yep.
Hours on the road =/= training.
If the LTDA are looking at the newly reworded tfl cycle skills(before just called cycle training) then unless many cab drivers are going to put in lots of hours to become cyclists I can't see them progressing to the point they are cycling with instructors on the road and even when they do I can't see them riding major roads and nasty gyratorys or anything.
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/cycling/cycling-in-london/cycle-skills
This might be a good sign of a turning point within the black cab industry, with uber giving them competition and the quality of drivers a recurring thing black cab drivers want to present themselves as better but only having "well I've done the knowledge so don't need a satnav" they might be seeking or negotiating something with tfl.
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We are, however, the best trained drivers on the city streets,
Taxi training in the UK is really quite extensive. They also need to be able to "on the fly" know routes and road conditions-- without help from Waze, Here and friends. They are indeed amongst the "best trained" but unfortunately not often the "best" or "safest" drivers on the road. Worse still since they are better trained they often assume that they have a total mastery-- which they don't-- over their vehicle and tend to take-- much like wanna-be "race drivers" in their high performance sports cars-- risks and put others into harm's way.
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About
Taxis - Black Cabs, Uber, Illegal Cabbies
Posted by
@cliveo
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/09/uber-london-cabbies-striking-black-taxi