London Taxi Guide

Taxi Guide (video coming)

What you can expect from the driver:
Unless they have a good reason not to, drivers must:
• Accept any hiring up to 12 miles or any hiring up to one hour duration
• Accept any hiring up to 20 miles if starting at Heathrow Airport
• Accept any hiring up to one hour duration, if the destination is in Greater London
• Those good reasons could be that the customer is unfit to travel – so drunk that they cannot give you an actual address, so drunk that they may be sick in the vehicle, they have already been sick on themselves, the passenger looks untrustworthy (the longer you are a cab driver the better you get at summing people up), the passenger doesn’t have the money on them and they want to go a long way etc…
(video of passengers you don’t pick up)
In this day and age of the internet, we all now have an easy way of complaining if a product or service isn’t up to standard – so why should the London Taxi trade be any different. It infuriates me when passengers tell me stories of how a London Taxi driver had spoken to them, not wanted to pick them up because the job didn’t suit them, or taken a much longer route which cost them more than they normally pay. I believe complaints make companies better and more efficient, so I urge you as our customers to email your complaints to our governing body – THE PUBLIC CARRIAGE OFFICE. All you need to do is take down the driver’s license number, registration number, or anything else you note, and write exactly what happened. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes, but if more people did it it would change the bad habits of many of those drivers that let or industry down.
The Public Carriage Office may change it’s address or phone number in the future, so to be directed straight to the complaints page, just type ‘London Taxi Complaint TFL’ into any search engine.
Complaints - pco.tfl@gtnet.gov.uk
020 7941 7800
The Public Carriage Office,
15 Penton Street, London, N1 9PU
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/contact/pco/taxi.aspx complaints forms
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There are no extra charges for luggage, additional passengers or carrying of assistance dogs.

There is an extra charge of £2 for journeys that start from Heathrow Airport ranks.

Christmas and New Year
There is an extra charge of £4 for journeys made between 20:00 on 24 December and 06:00 on 27 December or between 20:00 on 31 December and 06:00 on 2 January 2010.

Booking taxis and minicabs
Any minicab journey that isn't booked by phone or in a minicab office is illegal, dangerous and puts you at risk.
Booking your minicab guarantees that your trip will be carried out by a licensed driver in a licensed vehicle. It also means a record is kept of your journey so, in the event of any problem, the driver can be traced.
Even drivers in minicabs lined up outside pubs and clubs are breaking the law if they accept your fare without a prior booking. You must not approach minicab drivers and any minicab driver who approaches you on the street anywhere is acting illegally.

The difference between the green and yellow badges
Cab drivers who hold a green badge can pick up customers anywhere within the London metropolitan area; this is the entire area denoted by this map. The 9 separate coloured sections on the outside denote the yellow badge suburban areas.
Obviously drivers who choose to study a suburb, complete their knowledge in a much shorter time; usually around 2 years. They may choose to do this for several reasons these may include – central London may be too far for them to drive to and study everyday, financial and times constraints, or simply that they just prefer to work in the area they live. If they choose to study the “all London” knowledge, it will obviously take much longer – between 2 and 5 years depending again on your finances, time constraints, job, and of course how good your memory is.
Currently there is no visible distinction between a yellow and green badge holder, so occasionally a few cheeky yellow badge drivers may try to pick up outside of their zone. There are many cab drivers though who are pushing to have coloured licenses on display on the outside of all London taxis to prevent this.
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I frequently hear people suggest that we know every street in London, well, there are approximately 70,000 streets in Greater London, and I can only guess at the number of points of interest, basically that’s far beyond the capacity of even the world’s greatest memory champion. On average I would say we learn around between 5000 to 10000 roads, and the same number of points of interest within a 6 mile radius of Charing Cross.
Many of my customers have told me of their frustration when they have seen taxis driving along with their light off but with no one in the cab; there are several reasons for this, such as
-the driver is on their way home, therefore their hire light has to be off in case they are flagged down and asked to go 12 miles in the opposite direction (something they cannot refuse)
-The driver is a yellow badge holder and has to drive back to their suburb before they can work again
-the driver is going on a break to one of the many café’s or tea huts around London
-The driver is part of a radio circuit and has a pre booked account job they are on the way to
-There is something wrong with the cab and they are making their way home for safety
-And of course there are the times when we simply just forget to reset our meter –I have driven around some nights wondering why no one is hailing me only to find out 20 minutes later that my meter isn’t even on.
Increasing your chances of finding a taxi – especially at the busy periods
-When hailing a taxi, make your self as visible as possible by standing at the edge of the pavement with your arm raised high. Many times I see people put their hand up so briefly that I wasn’t sure if they wanted a cab or not.
-Obviously if you are wearing dark clothes it will be harder for a cab to see you at night, so if you can hold up anything light coloured to help you, this will increase your chances especially from a distance. A suggestion of mine, which isn’t as absurd as it sounds, is for you to carry something reflective, or even a keychain light that you can move around in the air.
-The west end is the busiest part of London, so on a busy night if you are having trouble getting a cab there, walking to the edge may take 5-10 minutes, but, could mean you getting a cab in 10 minutes as opposed to 30 minutes or much more by just standing in the same spot. Basically if you can get to any of the bordering roads Park Lane, Edgeware Road, Marylebone Road, Euston Road, Tottenham Court Road, Charing Cross Road, Shaftesbury Avenue or any bridge, then you increase you chances.
-There are several other ways to get a London taxi other than just hailing one, you can contact one of the several taxi circuits, websites, and there is even a service on Twitter – I have provided all the links in the description box.
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What is a London Taxi? Well currently there are 7 different models on the streets today.
The newest is from Mercedes, the Vito Taxi, which holds 6 passengers
The Metrocab, which there is a 5 and 6 seater version of
The rare and elusive Asquith
And then the 4 current models from LTI, the fairway, TX1, TX2, and TX4 all that hold 5 passengers.
Although they are more commonly known as ‘London BLACK Cabs’, they come in many different colours

Anything else is just a private hire vehicle, or more commonly known as a ‘minicab’
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Technology and the future.
Probably our biggest concern from the public is that there are never enough taxis around during the busy periods, but, during the years I have been a taxi driver, I believe there are always enough taxis. Basically, how are we, the taxis drivers, to know there is work on a parallel street to where we are driving along looking for work? There may be work in City and we don’t know, so continue to waste our time driving around the West End area. Etc etc. The two current ways we are dealing with this is by using the computer terminals in our taxis (that is those of us who work for computer circuits), and by the growing number of London Taxi drivers on Twitter. What we do is send messages out to all the other drivers to tell them ‘a train has just pulled into Paddington Station and we need more taxis’, or ‘The Albert Hall has just emptied and there are lots of people looking for taxis”. What I actually want to see is smart phone application that all London Taxi drivers have, and all members of the public have – an application that tells every taxi driver in London that someone wants a taxi. The way I envisage it is a map that the taxi driver opens on their phone, and on that map there are flashing red dots which symbolise people wanting a taxi. A person that wants a cab should just be able to press a button on their phone which creates the red flashing dot. There are many websites and ideas for booking London Taxis, but having been both a minicab driver and London Taxi driver for 13 years, I have concluded that people in London, one of the busiest cities in the world, don’t want to think that far ahead. So, in the ‘hopefully near future’, someone can be coming to the end of their meal, be putting their coat on, then suddenly think “I need a cab”.. well, no booking required, just press that button.
Obviously there are some minor issues and concerns that would have to ironed out, but I believe most of them will be common sense or courtesy issues. Obviously, if you’re a cab driver, you wouldn’t run 5 miles to a job when there will almost certainly be someone closer. If you are the person wanting a cab, you wouldn’t press the button until you are on the street, because we will pick up the first person with their hand up. Etc.

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Are London Taxis more expensive than minicabs?
There is no simple answer to this, but for some trips they are, and for others they aren’t; I will try to explain what I mean. The minimum fare for a London Taxi is £2.20, that means as soon as you get in the cab there will be £2.20 on the metre. The minimum fare for many of the large minicab fleets is around the £7-10; the exact amounts are available on their websites, so can easily be verified. The local firms outside of the central London area, (and some that aren’t) will be somewhere in the region £3-5. Many of these local firms can be somewhat unreliable as a service, and I have known many customers to miss planes, trains, and appointments because the minicab was late, didn’t turn up at all, or didn’t know where they were going.
Anyway, the fair in a London Taxi goes up in increments of 20p, and those increments go up at different speeds depending on the tariff. There are currently 3 tariffs we operate on, that is 3 different price systems during different times of the day.
Tariff 1 -6am until 8pm
Tariff 2 -8pm until 10pm
Tariff 3 -10pm until 6am
The more expensive tariff was introduced to persuade more taxi drivers to work later into the night.

Well what does this all mean to the customer? Well, if you want you are just using a London Taxi to get around the central London area, it’s quick, it’s convenient, and the price is similar to other forms of transport. If you are travelling somewhere within the M25 area our prices may sometimes be a little higher than the larger London firms, but generally they will be very similar. Outside of the M25, on those very rare long trips, you can negotiate with the driver on the fare beforehand. Recently I agreed to do a job for £70 to somewhere in Hertfordshire, but left the metre running to see what it would have cost - £88.60 eventually. Don’t assume every driver will do this, it will be completely at their discretion; you may however get a bargain if you catch a driver going home your way.
Touts, illegal minicabs, and pedicabs
“lets get an illegal minicab, we can barter with them”
Anyone who thinks that using an illegal minicab, or tout as they are more commonly known, is better because they can bargain with the driver, is sadly mistaken. I was hailed late in the city recently by a man wanting to go the East End of London, and as I pulled over, I saw a 5 seater vehicle, commonly used by touts, driving away from the man. ‘Thank god, a black cab’ said the man as he got in my taxi, so I asked whether that was an illegal minicab that had just pulled away; it was. What I didn’t understand was why he had said ‘thank God, a black cab’ because he had actually tried bartering with the driver? Anyway, the tout wanted £20, but the man said £15, so he drove away. The fare was £13 exactly in my taxi. I have had hundreds of other similar experiences, even with pedicabs, the 3 wheeled passenger carrying bikes that currently plague the streets of London. They have no metre system, so can charge what they like, and they regularly give quotes of £20 to places such as Paddington Station from the West End, which would be around £10 with a London Taxi. The London taxi trade is currently working to have the pedicabs taken off the streets of London, because not only are they incredibly unsafe, they also block the streets outside shops and theatres around the west end, and they ride up on pavements, and the wrong way down one way streets.

Alice In Wonderland Review

. I was really looking forward to seeing this version, especially as it was in the professional hands of a director that could do it justice. From the previews, I was a little worried that the special effects would be a bit on the bad side; and to an extent, they were. A lot of the effects centred around characters being different sizes to those around them. Even though I didn’t like the ‘Lord Of The Rings Trilogy’, I felt those films did a much better job of this; for instance putting a very small Elijah Wood, next to a regular sized Sir Ian Mckellen. And let’s us not forget, these were about 10 years old. Next up, the fully CGI characters, which were as bad as they were in any film. I still find it amazing that nearly 20 years after Jurassic Park and Terminator 2, there doesn’t appear to be any distinct improvement in computer generated imagery. The film as a whole was a decent enough to sit through, but for one that was directed by Tim Burton, and a story that is said to have been written while the author was high on drugs, it was a relatively straightforward movie. Compared to the complete madness and mayhem of Disney’s version, this could be said to be just an offshoot of the Harry Potter franchise. It actually made me want to go home and put the Disney version on, juts so I could re-scramble my brain. Another aspect that made the Disney version so brilliant, was all the great voices that were used for the characters. In this version it was just boring to hear the same old ones being rolled out yet again, and you can just picture them standing in front of a microphone with a script in their hand. At times it was a little slow, but then as the minutes ticked by, you could hear ‘the drums’; signalling the approach of yet another big battle scene in a film. I was very interested to see how they handled it, this time, and the best thing I can say is that they kept it short. May I also say just say how much the actress that plays Alice, is the spitting image of a much younger Gwenyth Paltrow. Then there’s Johnny Depp, who was a little annoying at times when his accent kept changing from English to Scottish. Obviously a little reminder to everyone that he could still do it since his role in ‘Finding Neverland’. Matt Lucas? What a stupid idea that was; it looked as though someone had just painted his face onto a balloon, then blew it up. His characters Tweedledee & Tweedledum, were nothing like the creepy ones in the Disney version. Speaking of these two, what the heck happened to ‘The Walrus & the Carpenter’ story they told in the Disney version?

The Wolfman review

The film was very middle of the road; it had so many cliches and nothing that any other werewolf film didn't have already. It was almost a clone of American Werewolf in London -

1) To start with Benicio Del Torro's character has come over from America - even though he has an American accent, he was born in England (in the movie).
2) Just before being killed by a werewolf, it is shot and he is saved
3) A scene from inside a LOCAL public house - featuring one of the actual actors from American Werewolf in London 'David Schofield' he is seen playing darts in AWIL, in this he is a local constable.
4) The transformation sequence is the same
5) He goes on a killing spree in London
6) There is that moment when the werewolf and the woman he is in love with, stare at each other just before he is then shot and killed.

Anthony Hopkins character appeared to be transplanted from 'Bram Stoker's Dracula', the only difference was the role he played. Then there was Hugo Weaving's character - I was expecting him at any moment to say 'Miiissssttterrr Annnnderson, surprised to see me? - where's Morpheus?' Emily Blunt's character was badly cast too, it's much better seeing her play feisty roles such as in 'The Devil Wears Prada'.

I went to see the film after listening to Jonathon Ross's review. He didn't say it was brilliant, just that it was well shot with great special effects and scenery; that was enough for me. The special effects were pretty good, although a CGI bear onwed by some gypsies nearly had me walking out. If you compare it to films such as AWIL, Jaws, Predator, Aliens, I would say that what you saw of the creature happened far too quickly. I feel it should have appeared much more gradually; that and some more harsh lighting on the wolf so it didn't look like a bloke in a costume. I have to say it wasn't awful, I just found it incredibly lazy, like they were just trying to fill hole in the release schedules. Wait til this one comes out on ITV one Saturday night in the future when you have nothing to do.

My review of the film 'The Book Of Eli'

Ahh, the Book of Eli, what can I say about this mess of a film? It started off on a very promising note, but from the moment we see the clichéd gothickly dressed, post apocalyptic woman pretending to ask for help, it descended down the same route as films such as ‘Waterworld’ and ‘Mad Max’. What is it with this ‘I don’t care about anyone-don’t want to speak to anyone-act like a moody teenager’ character that the protagonists of these types of films employ throughout the movie? As usual in a world where they can’t even find some shampoo, there seems to be a huge amount of powerful weaponry and ammunition lying about. Speaking of shampoo, which is made such a fuss of when it is found – why does the young woman Solara appear to have access to all the beauty products she can get her hands on; not to mention a salon quality hair style, and her mother too? More about her to come. I also ignored the very blatant KFC product placement of their branded moisture towels; even though it came up twice. It goes from bad to worse when there is a shoot out, and Denzel Washington’s character has a bullet hit the top of his coat, just behind his neck, but not him. Okay, so it appears that maybe this guy is in some way immortal, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that being part of the plot so far. The film then moves to an old house in the middle of the desert, occupied by a completely pointless and underused Frances De La Tour and Michael Gambon. The speed at which they are killed leaves you wondering exactly how they managed to survive this long in the first place. First let me mention the second annoying piece of product placement – the slow and obvious pan from a car battery to a “Motorola” loudspeaker. Now, the nature of their deaths. They are living in this house, that when hit by bullets, splinters as if made with balsa wood. Yet with the front of the house quickly disintegrating under fire, the four people in the house, standing up against the front wall, somehow manage not to get hit, or even look like they are in any danger whatsoever. Now we move onto Eli actually getting shot – yes he actually is wounded by a direct shot to his torso. This now begs the question from the scene where he is shot in the back of the neck – why didn’t he drop dead immediately from that bullet? Basically from there on I was left with many queries swimming around in my head-

-What was this voice that told him to head west to Malcolm McDowell (if it was “God”, then we assume he exists in the film, so why didn’t it prevent the apocalypse in the first place? In stead of having Eli bring the book to a safe place so that the world would eventually go the way it went before)
-Where did he learn to fight so well
-Why had it taken him 3 years to walk from one side of America to the other, when it should only have taken between 100-200 days depending on all the obvious factors
-(many others, but they are mostly just me being nitpicky)

The final scene is a complete joke – the young girl he has been travelling with, dresses up like Lara Croft, and heads out into the wastes on her own – WHY?? Is it that she has to carry on what Eli started? NO, the book is safe, there is nothing left to do. We saw from a previous scene in the film, that she wouldn’t last 2 minutes out there on her own, but now she’s heading out armed with a huge knife we know she has no idea how to handle! While this scene was playing through, the few people that were in the cinema around me, started laughing with me in disbelief.

My review of the film 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll'

January 11th (my birthday)

On the way home we discussed whether or not we should go and see ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock n Roll’ featuring Andy Serkis. I was in two minds about it, because after seeing ‘Ray’, I told myself I wouldn’t watch any more biographies because they simply are never interesting enough. This film however was in a league of its own, it was superbly acted by everyone, especially Serkis, it wasn’t the usual simplistic approach of ‘well this happened so this is why they are like this’, and of course, the music was great. Now, I know and like a few of Ian Dury’s songs, as they are always played on the radio, but to my wife they meant something, because she had liked them when they first came out. What was quite funny was the other “show” that was going on just to the right of us in the cinema. A man of about 50 years old had obviously dragged his wife along to see this, but she was not happy at all. Throughout much of the film she was sat rigid in her chair, sometimes with her hands over her ears, while he was nodding his head along to every song that started playing. He also did that thing of laughing louder than was natural, because he had spotted an ‘in joke’ or a reference. Is this some sort of signal or wild call that people make hoping that others in the audience will be impressed that they had spotted it as well. Or was it a ‘look at me I’m cool, I was there man, you wouldn’t understand’.

My review of the film Avatar

First of all, let me say - it is as outstanding as I had imagined. The new technique that Cameron has created to capture human emotion in a CGI creature is as good as I have ever seen, especially on the female alien Neytiri. Seeing Sigourney Weaver in her Avatar made me chuckle, as they had absolutely nailed that tight lipped smile that she is famous for. Now all Cameron has to do is create something that will sort out all the other movements of the body, which as usual are as floaty as every other attempt in film . I noticed that of all the creatures/aliens on screen, there weren't any that had fur or hair (except ponytails and weaving), which was probably what had to be done so as not to melt-down the rendering computers. I have only watched one other thing in 3D in the last 20 or so years, which was an underwater documentary at the Imax, but this badly strained my eyes and gave me motion sickness. Although the 3D in this was more subtle, I am still feeling the strain in the back of my eyes as I sit writing this. However, I did feel that because this feature was in 3D, it helped overcome that slightly flat look that CGI usually has on screen.

My fear was that from the trailers that this was going to be yet another excuse for a big budget battle sequence, and that the excuse for doing it was "well this one's in 3D, so it doesn't count". This wasn't the case; although there was the big battle, it didn't happen until the last 30 minutes of the two and half hour film, and was totally justified in keeping with the story line.

It makes no bones about the message it is trying to put across - we are killing our planet and we need to do something about it, but not by finding another habitable planet and doing the same there. It brings into the mix other big topical issues such as terrorism, "we need to fight terror with terror" says the military leader in order to rile his troops; something that I think George Bush said (or words to that effect).

This film is a brilliant way to get out messages such as these - arguably the most anticipated film of the decade, with a huge budget and marketing campaign, directed by the man who made the biggest grossing film of all time - people will flock to see it (old and young), and leave with the images they have seen burned into their psyche.

The film closes with a totally unsympathetic view on how we humans have treated our planet, and I think this is the only way to do it; I remember thinking "good, that'll teach us"!!??

My thoughts on the German film 'The Lives Of Others'

My wife sat and watched it for about 5 minutes, she then gave up and headed into the bedroom because of its slow pace; it never really got any faster. My expectation of this film was that is was going to be an 8-9 out of 10, but I would only give it about 4 because the story was very basic. I say basic because I found I could predict what the next line of dialogue was going to be several times during the running of the film. This film beat ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ at the Academy Awards for the best foreign film picture in 2007, but even though I am one of the few who weren’t impressed with 'Pan's Labyrinth', it was definitely better than ‘The Lives of Others’. Although foreign films have a rawness and edge to them which real movie buffs rave about, I am sorry to say that they are simply not as good as Hollywood films, especially in the writing. Yes Hollywood churns out a load of tosh, which you simply have to sit through to get to the good stuff, but when you do, it beats all foreign films hands down. Basically American writers are the best there are, that coupled with good budgets, a mixture of the best actors and actresses from around the globe, and soundtracks containing Western music (again the best in the world).