Hello Londoners, I am a black cab driver (Green Badge) and I come in peace
reddit.comAll the confusion from Americans is totally understandable. That being said, the title addressed his audience...Londoners. Comments suggesting a title change, so that people he wasn't intending to talk to can understand, is expecting too much. If the topic interests you, take the time to read for more context, maybe even ask, or research it.
We're very progressive in Australia. We have Black & White cab drivers.
I swear something like this has been posted here before... and it had the exact same confusion...
You might want to explain to Americans that a "black cab driver" isn't what first comes to mind for them (especially as juxtaposed with "and I come in peace"). It might also be worth a mention what "Green Badge" means.
You have cabs in NYC though - is it similar? In London the city controls the number of people that can operate black cabs, sets a standard tariff for fares and runs background and license checks. They can be hailed off the street (though also through some apps). And the drivers have to take "The knowledge"[1] a test which takes a few years to pass and means you can give the average cab driver any street name and they can get you there without a GPS.
[1]https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing...
> You have cabs in NYC though - is it similar? In London the city controls the number of people that can operate black cabs, sets a standard tariff for fares and runs background and license checks. They can be hailed off the street (though also through some apps). And the drivers have to take "The knowledge"[1] a test which takes a few years to pass and means you can give the average cab driver any street name and they can get you there without a GPS.
In New York City, cabs that have medallions for street hails are referred to colloquially as "yellow cabs" and those which do not are referred to as "black cabs" (more properly: "livery cab"). Both yellow cabs and black cabs are regulated by the TLC, but black cabs are not allowed to pick people up off the street. Instead, you have to call the company to arrange a pickup (using a mobile app qualifies as "calling" for this purpose).
Uber, Lyft, Juno, etc. are all regulated in New York City as black cab services, which means they can't take street hails, but they operate otherwise identically to all other non-medallion black cab services, with TLC-licensed drivers.
Oh interesting. OK, so the comparable is London black cabs and new york yellow cabs.
Yes, but they aren't called "black cabs". An American wouldn't know what you meant; they'd understand "yellow cab" for that, depending on where they're from. And a "black car" service is something completely different, just to add to the confusion: they're limousines that you have to pre-arrange and can't simply hail on the street (though many of them try to cheat when they can).
In the US the title reads as "i am a black (cab driver)" rather than "i am a (black cab) driver". It is a race thing.
I'm a white, U.S. born, citizen and I read it the first way not the second. The context of "Hello Londoners" makes it pretty clear.
It will be clear to anyone who’s heard of London’s black cabs (which I’m sure is a lot of people) but it’s probably damn confusing for those who haven’t.
I'm not so sure. I didn't know what London black cabs were and I still read it as (black cab) driver. I just assumed black cabs meant something like black car cabs, e.g., Uber SUV.
I'm confused. Do you think the OP is black?
It took me some googling to figure both of those out. I'm still stuck trying to figure out what The Knowledge is. Can anyone help?
So London has "Hackney Carriages" ('black cabs') and minicabs. Black cabs are allowed to pick you up on-demand ('streetwork') or at taxi ranks (a designated place where you can expect to find multiple taxis just queued up waiting for you), minicabs you have to order. (Apps are making this a bit hazy, since ordering either via an app is just as easy).
The 'green badge' is your licence. There's green, yellow, and 'minicab' licences. Green is a citywide black cab, Yellow is constrained to one area, and minicab is no black cab, but dispatch-only.
'The Knowledge' is the test (and associated training) required to become a black cab driver. It's years worth of study. It's pretty much memorising an A-Z, but also knowing the best routes, at different times of the day, etc.
Three vehicles you can expect to see almost everywhere in London are red busses, black cabs, and scooters with a clipboard on the handlebars. The latter are drivers on their multi-year study of The Knowledge.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/t-magazine/london-taxi-te...
> It's pretty much memorising an A-Z
The A-Z (pronounced 'zed') was the most popular London streetmap in the 20th century.
Pre GPS it was a requirement that cabbies have a massive list of places and routes through London memorized (that guy taking 3.5 years to study and pass the entrance exam is pretty par for the course).
There's a 1996 documentary on the process that's pretty interesting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvFKh_3evC8
Separately, this is the kind of non robots doing manufacturing automation that I think it's important to think about when we have discussions of future work, etc.
Because on the one hand it's stunningly fantastic that what used to take someone 4 years and a series of examinations to achieve is now included for a negligible cost in the pocket supercomputer (of 1996) that we all carry around in our pocket. But, it's also a huge shift for all these industries.
I think anyone who’s Ubered much (or driven much, for that matter) can tell you GPS is not nearly as good as knowing the streets. It may be good enough that it’ll take over, but it’s still a lot worse.
GPS is better in that there's accountability. For complex cities, as a driver you can really screw over a passenger by taking a convoluted route. As a passenger, you can watch the driver leave the GPS route (or get a trip report) and know that you've been (or are being) screwed.
The Knowledge is a test black cab drivers have to take. They basically spend several years learning various streets and routes in the city [1]. It essentially turns them into a human GPS.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom...
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knowledge_(film)
It's a drama rather than a documentary, but highly recommended (IMO).
Not all Americans are obsessed with race, and plenty know some things about the UK even if they've never been. I saw "London" and "black cab" and the title was clear... I guess it is due to differing styles of reading, I tend to pattern-match before going left-to-right.
This is a perfect example of where the judicious use of a hyphen would bring clarity ("black-cab driver" vs "black cab-driver").
I agree, maybe the title could be editorialized in this case.
I was browsing the /r/London subreddit so assumed too much context for a global forum
Agreed, "I drive a black cab" would be much clearer for us Yanks. I assumed it was a race thing too.
Would you be OK with me asking you to avoid using a standard U.S. English phrase so it's clearer for us Brits?
"Black cab driver" is part of our lexicon. It carries a lot of cultural meaning, and it's always phrased like that. You briefly misunderstood it as race-related, then you learned what it means. I don't see a reason to change anything.
Yes, I would be OK with that.