Taxi

By COLIN HAYCRAFT THE London taxi, like the London bus, is one of the traditions of the metropolis. Its design, much influenced by the Model T, seems to have changed little. Some concessions have been made to modern times—an illuminated 'For Hire' sign now appears on the canopy and tinted glass has been inserted in the rear window—but its main features seem to be constant and ageless : the open driving platform, the quilted dark leather up- holstery, the prominent headlamps, the obstin- ately unstreamlined body. Two years ago' the Prototype of an entirely new cab, with inde- pendent front-wheel suspension, hydraulic clutch and brakes and an 'estate car' body, was ap- proved for production. When it was tested in service, the mechanical innovations were fault- less, but the new body was unfavourably received by the trade and no further models of the type were produced. Cabs are now being constructed with two-pedal control and a magnetic clutch, but it is doubtful whether the exterior design will ever change. And why should it? The taxicab, in appearance as well as in function, is London's traditional equivalent to the gondola.

The reluctance of the London cab trade to- wards change is, of course, primarily commer- cial: the taxi, in no danger of being confused With any other vehicle, is easily spotted by the Public. But this reluctance is noticeable even in comparative inessentials.

The conservatism of the trade has deep histori- cal roots. The motor-cab was introduced in Lon- don during the first decade of the century and by 1908 there were already nearly 3,000 licensed, just over half as many as today. But it is not4ible how little change was brought by the evolution of horse into motor. Cab design, both inside and out, .goes much farther back than to the Model T: in principle it is still much the same as that of the old hansom. As far as affects the driver, this is certainly so. Instructions are now given to him by means of a sliding glass panel behind, instead of from below through a hole in the roof, but his position in the cabin is still often exposed to the weather and the need for warm clothing has hardly diminished.

Similarly, many of the regulations under which he operates date back to the days of the hackney carriage. The basis of London cab legislation was laid by the Hackney Carriage Acts of 1831-53 and the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act of 1869. An Act of 1907, which was concerned to regulate taximeter fares, defined the phrase 'hackney carriage' to include 'any vehicle whether drawn or propelled by animal or mechanical power,' and thus a whole body of legislation for horse-drawn cabs was made to apply without dis- tinction to the new motor-cab. The most recent major system of regulations, the London Cab Order of 1934, which did make a distinction be- tween the two—horse-cabs did not finally dis- appear from London streets till 1947—rendered much of the old legislation obsolete but left much of it in force.

But even though the law be an ass in some respects, it is venerable in others. Many excellent regulations are over a hundred years old. The public should be glad to know the antiquity of enactments which enjoin, for example, that in London a taxi driver must give way if he con- veniently can to any private vehicle, that he is liable to a f5 fine (a large sum in 1831) if he endanger anyone in life, limb or property by intoxication or by wanton or furious driving, that he may carry no extra person without the consent of the hirer or use any abusive or insulting lan- guage, that no advertisements may be placed either inside or out to obstruct ventilation or cause annoyance, that no driver of a stationary unhired cab may refuse to take a passenger (though a travelling cab is under no obligation to stop when hailed) or refuse to carry him within a radius of six miles, that no driver may wil- fully deceive anyone about the route or smoke if a passenger objects or ply for hire by blowing a horn, that a cab owner is not merely entitled but compellable to put his cab to work on the Lord's Day—and, above all, that it is illegal for a cab driver to demand or receive a tip. Over six years, from 1951 to 1956, there was an aver- age of '161 convictions a year for offences under London cab legislation, the largest number for taximeter offences, but most of the rest for offences against legal provisions over one hundred years old. The rate of convictions, incidentally, for using' insulting language and for demanding or taking more than the proper fare was the same, at an average of just under nine a year.

At the end of 1956, the last published figure, there were altogether 5,706 licensed cabs in ser- vice in the metropolitan area. London cabs come under rigorous control by the Metropolitan Police, the official licensing' authority. Before a cab is put on the road two licences are required, one for the cab itself and one for the driver. Cab licences have to be renewed each year and de- pend on the certificate of the Public Carriage Examiner. Plates, which remain the property of the police, giving the number of the cab and the number of passengers it is licensed to carry (normally four), together with a notice inside pre- scribing extra charges and stating the address of the Assistant Commissioner of Police, for com- plaints, are thereupon affixed. In the postwar period, when there was a large number of pre- war cabs in service, the examiner's staff was con- siderably exercised. In 1948 80 per cent. of the fleet was over ten years old and almost 1,000 cabs were over fifteen; over 4,000 cabs were reported as unfit. But by .1955 as many as 96 per cent. of the fleet were of recent construction. Cabs are inspected quarterly, the examiners visiting cabs at ranks, stations and the owners' premises.

To acquire a cab driver's licence, apart from passing a special driving test, a person must show that he is of good character and that he has 'an adequate knowledge of the metropolitan area.' In the six years 1951-56 there were altogether 34,127 attendances for the 'Knowledge of Lon- don' test, but only 1,601 successful candidates. The test is verbal. The candidate will have been issued with a 'blue book' (it is really white, but was blue in the days of the hackney carriage) de- scribing a series of shortest routes to and from various points. When asked to name a route, he will have to know not merely the route of minimum distance but the various 'escape routes' to be taken during times of rush-hour traffic. Most candidates take almost a year before they have sufficient knowledge to pass the test.

The police are also responsible for making regulations on the position of cab ranks. Rank accommodation has been diminishing steadily in recent years and since 1949 there have always been fewer places than the number of cabs in service. It is an offence for a cab to stand for hire except at a rank, but as any cab can stand at any rank and cabs may do many jobs without returning to a rank (and travel all over London in the process), there is no shortage. The need for rank accommodation decreased with the start in 1951 of a scheme to control cabs by radio. There are now three groups of owners operating the scheme : one in north London, one in south London and one run by owner-drivers. At the end of 1956 there were 1,005 cabs fitted with radio equipment, for which the average daily number of calls was approximately 4,000. It is doubtful, however, whether the scheme has turned out as great a success as was intended, since drivers tend to respond to calls only at times when business on the streets is slack. At least one firm is known to have left the scheme after a six-month trial. It is extremely difficult to en- sure that a sufficient number of cabs is always present exactly where and when demand is heavy, and the most conspicuous shortage is invariably at railway termini at times when several main- line trains arrive simultaneously. But on the whole the needs of the public 'are well served.

To understand the finances of taxicabs it is necessary to understand the relationship between owner and driver. Except perhaps for a few sur- viving cases where a flat rate may still be in force, the owner does not employ the driver for wages but hires out his cab to him for a period, on agreement that a certain percentage of takings will accrue to himself. The agreement at present generally in force is that the driver gets 371 per cent. of the fare plus all the extras plus half the surcharge.

The owner has to pay for the entire mainten- ance of the cab and for the fuel, including what is used in cruising. The proportion of licensed drivers to cabs in service is just over three to two, and since nearly half the cabs in service are run by owner-drivers the proportion of drivers available to cab-owning firms can be cal- culated at about two to one. This might be con- sidered a reasonable balance, but it must be remembered that not all drivers work full-time (many of them have other part-time jobs; some- times, for example, running small businesses which their wives can keep up while they are driving): Some drivers may take a cab out for the whole day and part of the night, but an owner who hopes to keep most of his cabs working for three shifts will have difficulty in getting enough drivers. An owner can always refuse to hire his cab again to a driver who does not give him satisfaction, but if he is too fussy he may find himself without any drivers at all.

It may appear absurd that when fuel prices rise the public should have to pay a surcharge, half of which may go to a driver who does not have to pay anything for the fuel himself. The argument of the union that when there is a sur- charge the driver receives less in tips (though one might think that the higher the total fare the more the unwitting client feels himself obliged to tip) is rendered no less absurd by a con- sideration that tips are in any case illegal. An owner-driver, of course, receives the lot, but this fact merely emphasises the disparity of the whole surcharge arrangement. A more equitable ar- rangement would naturally be to alter the whole rate, but this would involve the alteration of taximeters, a process which takes some time.

The whole question of taxi finances is under review by auditors appointed by the Home Secre- tary, and it would be rash to speculate too much on the matter at the moment. Most firms, a few of which run fleets of over one hundred cabs, are old family concerns and so do not publish accounts. It is noticeable that the number of owner-drivers (now about 2,700) is on the in- crease. The new Austin cab, which is fast super- seding all other makes, costs £1,050 fitted with a diesel engine (the petrol version is £100 less, but is now hardly in demand). It is exempt from purchase tax and from hire-purchase restrictions, will last about nine years and can be acquired by a down-payment of a third of cost price. A diesel cab will do about thirty-two miles to the gallon (a petrol cab about seventeen), though the rate will, of course, depend on how much the driver plies within the 'magic circle' (cab lan- guage for the congested area within a mile radius of Piccadilly Circus), where it will cost him more to run his cab but he may get more business; on the other hand, since the taximeter works by time instead of distance (on an equivalent scale) when a hired cab is stationary or travelling at a speed not more than 5f m.p.h., the higher cost of running in low gear is to some extent compen- sated.

There is no way of telling an owner-driver, event by asking him or, perhaps, by noting the' care with which he treats his vehicle. Since all drivers are entitled to all the extra charges, no evidence can be gained from any urgency with which he may appear to take luggage on to the` platform. But at this point it should be men- tioned that many drivers show no undue urgency and are extremely considerate to their clients. In contrast, the old nineteenth-century cabby seems to have had, though perhaps unjustly, a bad repu- tation : it is remarkable how almost all provisions in the early Acts were directed to protect the public against offences and that it was not for over sixty years, with the London Cab Act of 1896, that penalties were enacted against members of the public found guilty of defrauding cabmen. During the war a vast number of cabs and drivers did valiant service fire-fighting in the 'Taxi Home Guard'; and the industry as a whole, which fills an essential need so efficiently, has much to be proud of. Individual drivers, of course, vary; just as they vary in the kind of service they like to perform—some preferring to queue at railway stations, some to cater for florists in the early morning at Covent Garden, some to ply for hire later in other areas for those who are themselves plying for hire.

So much for London. In the provinces, taxis are, of course, unaffected by the special legisla- tion which controls the metropolitan trade. Pri- vate cars tend to be used, but there are many London cabs in the big towns : of the 6,691 Austin cabs sold since 1949, 1,759 have gone into the provinces, quite apart from the number of London cabs resold secondhand. (The Austin cab also has an export market, but this is confined mainly to Portugal and Spain.) Fares and other regulations in the provinces are laid down •by the local council.

In big towns cabs are commonly fitted with taximeters, adjusted to a local scale, but in smaller places the council may simply draw up a vague schedule of distances. Certain fares, e.g. those for journeys between towns or from different areas of a town to the railway station, will be fixed. Thus the fixed charge from the station to one side of a street may be 3s., but . to the other side 3s. 6d. For many journeys the fare may be left for arbitration; and as Baedeker might have put it, Londoners in small provincial towns, accustomed to the taximeter, do well to make a settlement before they start.

The provincial taxi driver, like his London counterpart, often works part-time. Of the five taxi operators, for instance, in a Welsh seaside town, one is a part-time operator with his own car, two have small garages mostly selling petrol and oil, while the fourth owns a repair garage and runs two taxis and a van with one hired driver. The fifth is the owner of the local hearse. At funerals, while he is driving the hearse, he en- gages a driver to operate his taxi for the mourners. Between funerals, he runs his taxi as an owner-driver. He is generally agreed to be in a very good line of business.