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I can understand the dislike of Uber but I find it incredibly useful and in many ways it does fill a necessary gap.
I very rarely use it in London but it hugely simplifies matters when travelling. It used to be the case that you'd have to phone a taxi company and try and order a taxi in a language you couldn't speak or download an app for every city you went to. In other places, like large parts of the US, there just wasn't an option at all and the choices were to hire a car or not be able to get anywhere.
Uber may not be the answer but there is undeniably a demand for that or something similar.
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Uber is a bit like McDonalds breakfasts.
You know it's bad for you. You wish there was a better option. But when it's 4am, you are cold, and you don't have a lot of money, you are pretty glad they exist. Then after availing yourselves of their services you realise you could have been fitter and happier if you'd just walked away.
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If the timestamp is correct this happened a couple of days ago, unsure why the driver would upload it but myself and a few others downloaded a copy from a tweet so it couldn't be deleted.
If you decide to watch be prepared, driver slams the brakes on throwing passenger into the front of the cab head first knocking him out then dumps him on the side of the road.
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Had 10 years of very few run ins with cabs. Now I'm getting one a day. So much so I'm dreaming up new ways to engage with the drivers.
Today I listened to the 30 second rant about cyclists then I smiled and said 'I'm not a cyclist - I'm a human' - this confused him somewhat.
I would just like a few one liners ready. Just not quite bad enough to have the fella get out of the cab an kick my ass - but enough for a bit of entertainment on the commute home through the West End.
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How about:
"I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else - I've never seen anyone else drive as badly as my boyfriend before."
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Had two run -ins today.
First, coming out of Assembly Passage on Redmans Row (E1). Assembly Passage is two-way, but single lane, I'm at the end of the road, turning right when a black cab figures I'll get out of the way if he drives at me head-on. He then objected to me calling him a fucking moron.
Later, just now in fact, cab driver didn't bother to stop at a Stop sign, and just drove straight at me. Reasonable behaviour I suppose as I was only on a bicycle.
He reacted quite badly when I lent into his cab and gave him a slap. Apparently that's assault, while aiming your cab at a cyclist is perfectly OK.
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So was the driver at Assembly Passage turning into it from Redman's Road when he drove at you? He should obviously have waited to turn until you had completed your manoeuvre. It's an inversion of normal practice, of course, in which usually the driver/rider on the main street should complete their manoeuvre first, and an inversion which, as you imply, he would obviously have observed had you been in a car.
Assembly Passage is definitely one of the oddest streets in London.
Where was the stop sign incident? Stop signs are very rare in the UK, of course, but that makes them all the more important, as they are usually only used where there is a real need for a full stop. I think the only one I'm aware of in Hackney is at the junction of Well Street and Elsdale Street (blind corner, Well Street one-way and narrow, probably a history of lots of prangs). There are probably others, but I'm not a signage headbanger.
Obviously, your own behaviour wasn't above criticism, no matter how understandable, but as your anger has dissipated you can probably see that. Haven't we all done things we're not proud of, etc. Slapping a stranger is assault, whether in the heat of the moment or not. Anger is obviously a perfectly appropriate emotion in this sort of situation, and it is not your fault that the situation occurred, or that you were in two situations like that on the same day. However, to state the obvious, you place yourself at risk of arrest and being charged with assault--probably less so if you're not black (https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/196586/ (and that wasn't even an assault)), but still.
Also, more of a general remark than aimed at you, but 'moron' is originally a nasty term for people with learning disabilities.
Moron is a term once used in psychology and psychiatry to denote mild intellectual disability. The term was closely tied with the American eugenics movement.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moron_(psychology)
It is for that 'eugenics' connection alone that I wouldn't use it. At any rate, it's strange to want to insult someone with reference to people with learning disabilities, who are often the sweetest, kindest people you could possibly meet.
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Assembly Passage is definitely one of the oddest streets in London.
You can say that again. I work on Assembly Passage and we see many strange things going on on a daily basis. To say it's 'edgy' is an understatement. Yes, the cab driver was turning into Assembly Passage from Redmans Row.
Where was the stop sign incident?
The stop sign is on Royal Hill, Greenwich, opposite a school. It is part of a traffic-calming measure, where a width-restriction has been installed. Traffic going uphill through the restriction (in this case, me) has priority, and traffic coming down the hill (the cab), are obliged to stop.
I am aware that I over-reacted, and that in theory I may have committed an assault, but in the heat of the moment....
I was vaguely aware that using the word moron is frowned upon these days, but I wasn't aware it was connected with the eugenics movement. I have tended to use it as a general diss - a kind of polite 'twat'. Will try to be more woke in future.
In a similar vein, my daughter, who is 17, told me today that the term 'Oriental' is now frowned upon. Is that true, and if so, can you illuminate?
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Yes, although 'idiot' goes back a long way, to Ancient Greek, and in its original meaning merely means something like 'someone without a role in public life'.
The word "idiot" comes from the Greek ἰδιώτης, idiōtēs 'a private person, individual', 'a private citizen' (as opposed to an official), 'a common man', 'a person lacking professional skill, layman', later 'unskilled', 'ignorant' from ἴδιος, idios 'private', 'one's own'. In Latin, idiota was borrowed in the meaning 'uneducated', 'ignorant', 'common', and in Late Latin came to mean 'crude, illiterate, ignorant'. In French, it kept the meaning of 'illiterate', 'ignorant', and added the meaning 'stupid' in the 13th century. In English, it added the meaning 'mentally deficient' in the 14th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot
I find it a word with a more neutral etymology that isn't quite as bad as other insults, which, let's face it, all have a lot to do with people being nasty to each other. However, you can't do without insults completely (they're a necessity of life), and the later meaning of 'village idiot' is only one branch of its meaning. I find the original meaning vaguely connected with 'not doing any good (or only good for oneself)' and I use it in roughly that meaning. But simply, you need a word, or words, you can say when you're angry about someone, without inadvertently repeating discriminatory and victimising words like 'moron'.
'Imbecile' was part of the same nasty, discriminatory terminology as 'moron'. It's not in use as widely, though, probably because it's longer and more complicated phonetically. I see the adjective used more often, I think.
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You can say that again.
Assembly Passage is definitely one of the oddest streets in London.
There you go.
I don't have as much knowledge of it as someone working on it, obviously, and I was mainly thinking about the fact that it's two-way despite its narrow width, the little covered entrance from the A11, and the cobbles. That there are dodgy goings-on is obviously perfect.
You might want to edit your posts, and I'll edit mine, in case the cabbie decides to search in the same way that @dancing james ' assailant was found on Farcebonk two years ago because she was talking about it there.
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13804746/
Or you could, of course, meet up for a pint and make up.
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This is interesting:
The IWGB has made quite a few waves in the last few years with its work for cycle couriers, including food delivery couriers.
The angle of discrimination is an interesting thing to highlight, but while I don't know the law, black cabs have historic rights under the legislation that regulates them which minicab drivers don't have. The appeal should shed some more light on all that.
At any rate, some of the firms affected which have deep enough pockets would probably accelerate fleet replacement to make every one of their vehicles wheelchair accessible.
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You may be able to spot a slight difference in the tone of reporting here:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/24/uber-london-licence-transport-for-london
It is, of course, completely unrelated to the fact that the editor of the Evening Standard works for BlackRock, which has a stake in Uber.
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At 2 o’clock this morning i learned about the practice of ‘longhauling’ first hand, whereby an Uber driver takes you on a needlessly long route to increase their fare.
I think the driver thought i was a tourist and didn’t know where I was going (it was an airport trip) - and took an indirect route twice as long subsequently costing twice as much.Managed to get a refund fairly quickly as Uber seem to know this is a problem - but something to watch out for.
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Definitely yeah - though this one is a journey i’ve done loads of times (to my in-laws’) and last night was twice as long in duration as it needed to be, at a time when the roads are all empty.
In hindsight i should’ve called out the driver when we started obviously going in the wrong direction (red dots are the way I (and google, uber, and my in-laws) would have expected).
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About
Taxis - Black Cabs, Uber, Illegal Cabbies
Posted by
@cliveo
What the...
To be honest I'm always going to be suspicious of tech companies disrupting transport systems thanks to Uber. If Citymapper are saying things like 'regulation makes it hard to be smart' they just sound like every other techbro. Like the regulation might be old but... I still want there to be regulation.