To not understand the point of black cabs now?

[Userlavender]

Aside from all the uber controversy (i use addison lee and local minicabs) can someone please tell me - what is the point of black cabs in 2017?!

They are insanely expensive, surely the knowledge is irrelevant now that everyone has satnav and they love going the long way round to get extra £££? This has happened to me a few times. Cab to the airport using my local minicab which sends driver details and tracking is £18. With a black cab the estimate is 'about £80'. Surely they are no longer sustainable due to prices? Am I missing something? Who are all these people who pay black cabs their ridiculous prices?

The whole industry needs an overall IMO.

Black cabs are prohibitively expensive. Like others on this thread I've also had the "no to south of the Thames" chat (and even, memorably, "Nah, mate, sorry, I've just come from there" ). And I've heard more of them than not spout xenophobic shite. The husband of an acquaintance (40-ish) is a cabbie, and I'm struggling to imagine it being a viable career for him for the rest of his working life.

OTOH, the only (very minor) accident I've been in involved a mini cab hired from a reputable local firm - driver was texting (iirc) and drove into central reservation, after we'd explicitly told him to keep his eyes on the road. And I've had a number of mini cab drivers (and Uber drivers) speak so little English that frankly I couldn't give them the destination address I needed verbally if I had to.

I've generally found Uber to be very good, but prices are almost too low at times and I worry about the drivers being exploited.

Userlavender, it was not a comparison, it was an analogy.

I don't understand your aggressive remark. I wasn't. But you were. If you don't want other posters to express opinions that you might not like then you should not post in AIBU. The way you respond to other opinions with personal abuse does nothing to further the discussion.

userlavender So are people saying minicab drivers are not regulated? Don't they need a tfl licence? If that's all i'm paying for with a black cab, to 'know who are they are' then i think tfl should do the same for minicabs. Seems to be a grey area around the different licensing requirements but if that was more transparent what's the issue

Minicab drivers are regulated - that's the issue with Uber in London, TfL have raised issues with them that Uber haven't addressed (like the 13,000 outstanding DBS checks on drivers, failure to report crimes and incidents, complaints to TfL as the regulator etc.) So, as a responsible regulator TfL have taken action. Uber's response is not to reply to the queries or work with TfL but to start a petition supporting their entitled attitude.

I use black cabs in London if I'm in a hurry or running late - or with 3 or 4 other adults. But never for a long trip, too expensive. I use Uber in outer London, much simpler. But I've had to correct the Uber driver on almost all trips (including them ringing me for directions to where I am). I have good local knowledge so not a problem. My DDs use Uber, too - and I like being able to track progress but I worry about getting a rogue driver or one who doesn't know the route. So I'd like Uber to actually work ethically and comply with the licensing regulations...

@viques i think your 'analogy' was stupid. Thank you for your opinion. I don't know what else to say really - sorry

User you are perfectly entitled to your opinion.

But if you cannot see the unfair advantage that minicab/Uber drivers are given in this market, then you must be blind as well as stupid.

You keep banging on about 'technology', let's see if you'd be saying the same thing if your job, whatever it may be, was placed on the line because your employer decided that a computer could do it better.

As PPs have said, by that reckoning none of us should bother studying. We can all get the information from the internet at the end of the day.

@mythbusting - hopefully they will comply. I can't see how they won't when they have a lot to lose

@nettleelf no it's more nuanced than that and you know it. You need information and then you know what to do with it. A cab needs to drive safely etc - he doesn't need to learn the route off by heart.

@nettleelf and how are they given an unfair advantage? Who gets first refusal at tourist attractions and airports etc?

But it's not just about knowing the routes.
They learn a hell of a lot more than that.
Which is why they're Londons finest and always will be.

Using Uber as an example, the assaults, attacks, price surging during catastrophic events and recently a terrorist attack being carried out by an Uber driver outside Buckingham Palace, is enough for me to continue to use Black Cabs.

No matter how 'expensive' they are, cannot put a price on safety.

it's unbelievably thick to learn something off by heart when it's already saved electronically for you. That's what i think anyway

Twat navs are not always wonderful. We have a brand new car as in we've literally just got it on the new plates and the twat nav comes as standard. It's been updated and has latest maps yet it doesn't recognise a road that has been made one way two years ago.

Too many people rely on them and can't figure out a road or turning if the twat nav can't.

Regular taxis with sat navs where I live are useless. I can tell a taxi where to go but they insist on following the twat nav despite me telling them about road works etc.

I've also been stuck in an Uber with a friend in London and he refused to stray from the twat nav and we were stuck in traffic for at least half hour yet I've been sat in a black cab in London and the drivers don't rely on a twat nav and often know the short cuts through side streets that a twat nav doesn't recognise.

What are you on about?

An unfair advantage in that, TfL regulate the 'expensive' prices that Black Cabs are allowed to charge. They also dictate what cabs they can drive, how old they are allowed to be, how often they need to be overhauled, the insurance they should have, how often they are to have medicals, DBS checks...

The very same body then agreed to flood the streets with 40000 drivers, who are allowed to undercut the prices that Taxi Drivers charge, driving cheap cars and operating on dodgy licences/Medicals, without the correct insurance.

It was an uneven playing field from the start.

I never use uber. I use Addison Lee / minicabs. Uber will fix up im sure anyway.

Only using them as an example.

Addison Lee and minicab companies worked in perfect harmony with the Black Taxi trade before Uber dominated the market.

They'll never sort themselves out. You can polish a turd...

@nettle fair - but they will probably pretend to play ball for a while at least. Can't see them ever being fully banned permanently

Wonder what satnavs you lot use. Mine seems to work everywhere - live in the arse End of nowhere. Works on addresses as well as post codes and has live traffic. Evan a friend with a helicopter prefers TomTom to Nav by.

It's quite simple. Many people have set out on here valid reasons why they prefer black cabs. If they are too expensive for you, you have the service you say you already use instead (Addison Lee/local cabs). TfL ensure a certain standard, which is why uber have had their licence suspended. With black cabs you have the knowledge that they are held to a higher standard. If that's not an extra service you want to pay for, don't.

They're not 4 times the cost the last time I used them.

I got an Uber to the eye hospital as I'd hurt my eye - was £25

Then I got a black cab back as it was POURING with rain (the Uber's available because of the rain was £40 plus)

It was £35 in a black cab. So cheaper than an Uber at that time.

If I hadn't been in pain and unable to see properly I'd have got tube and bus. Taxis are a complete luxury in London unless you need them as public transport is so good.

Re uber and assault, they're no more safe or dangerous than other private hire vehicles. based on a freedom of information request from the Sun (of all places) in 2915 126 private hire license holders (cabbies) had been charged with violent or sexual assaults. 32 of these were Uber drivers. So clearly, Uber Drivers are a serious proportion of this figure, but they're not the only drivers in the city. www.thesun.co.uk/news/1202660/more-than-1000-cabbies-have-been-charged-with-violent-and-sex-attacks-in-just-five-years-across-uk-sun-probe-finds/ Not that I don't think Uber practices are questionable, I just question why it's being reported in this way....

This article says that there were 62754 (licensed) private hire vehicles in London in 2015, and Uber claimed they had 15000 drivers in london at that time. www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/11822711/Since-Uber-launched-there-are-26pc-more-cabs-in-London.html .

So, in really unsophisticated number crunching, Uber had roughly 24% of private hire drivers in London at the time, and Uber drivers represented 25% of drivers convicted of violent or sexual crime.

For those squicked by Uber's employment practises, many private hire firms are developing their own apps to rival uber so you have the convenience of that service.

I don't live in London any more but when I did, I didn't use black cabs because they'd never go south of the river where I lived. I'd be sad to see them go but I can't help but feel that they're successfully lobbying TFL to remove competition...

Look for the film "The Knowledge" on Youtube (incidentally, a stage play having a brief run in London at the moment). Although that was made in 1979, from what I've heard, the reality hasn't changed much. The would-be cabbies still have to call the examiners "sir", and the old hands say to the newbies "give it up, this game's finished, always has been".

Nigel Hawthorne played a particularly sadistic examiner, and says to a room of young cabby hopefuls: "the amount of macaroni you have to bone up in your head... is a grand total of fifteen thousand, eight hundred and forty-two streets, and the few thousand buildings on them, by heart. Not many brain surgeons have to know a fraction of what you have to know. And a little secret: seven out of the ten of you here will never make it."

Also "If your hobby is mugging old ladies, or driving a vehicle with a gallon of martinis inside you and a cherry on your head, go into politics, not cab driving; because one conviction ever... and you're back in the bus queue."

I don't like travelling in black cabs, they're too uncomfortable and on the whole, the drivers are rude and ignorant. They almost always seem to be hooked up to an ear piece talking to someone and frequently don't listen when you point out they've missed a turn or your house despite shouting from the back.
Uber are cheap, friendly and I like the fact the journey is tracked, I know which car to expect and which driver and there's no cash involved.

In my experience Addison Lee are welded to their satnavs and follow it slavishly even when it's insane (e.g. Took me Clapham to Chiswick via Parliament Square ). Driver spoke no English so my remonstrations fell on deaf ears

Conversely, in black cab, accident blocking road ahead, so we zig zagged down side turnings and got past. I'd probably still be there....

Also all the advantages like tracking and online ordering quoted on TV for Uber and ADLee are also available on black cab apps like MYTaxi which is brilliant and often has 50% off at weekends and outside rush hours.

I'll never forgive the way Uber behaved around the bombings (I don't care if it was an algorithm - over-ride it!) compared with the cabbies taking people for free.

I'm guessing it's only in London that there's such a disparity in prices. I live in Liverpool and use a mix of uber, local minicabs and black cabs. The difference is only a couple of pounds. During city centre peak periods a black cab is cheaper than an uber. And there is the convenience of flagging one down and getting straight into the the cab. My friends all live in opposite directions to me so it means I'm not stood on my own waiting for a cab in the early hours.

I've never used uber, but I've just looked at www.uberestimator.com and there are various different fares and it seems to be from £8 to £18 to get a cab from the city station from my house.

If we have a night out in the city we often get a black cab from the rank there and it was £12 the last time we did that, but that was at a busy time - after midnight on a Saturday night so I assume uber would be about the same, if not more? Mini cabs are usually around £10-15 at that time too, so all broadly in line.

Userlavender - you have an unnecessarily aggressive dislike of black cabs. It's not like you don't have other choices, so why all the aggression and hyperbole? Being totally reliant on satnav because you don't know an area at all is dangerous and distracting, not vastly superior to someone who knows where they are going. You don't like black cabs, you don't have to pay for them. There is no need to tell the rest of the world how thick they are for disagreeing with your opinion.

@xici interesting - they seem vastly more expensive in london at all times