As a callow youth of 16 back in that ‘Summer of Love’, I ventured on a school-exchange programme with a similar youth in northern France.  It was the familiar pattern: he came here and stayed with my family for three weeks, then we both trained and ferried over to his family near Lille for the next three weeks.  It was fun, educational and character-building stuff – highly recommended.  (And before you ask, all key aspects of ‘summer’ and ‘love’ were successfully accomplished).

Whilst there, I also discovered that it was still possible to hear Test Match Special on the BBC, so I spent some time following by radio the only team-game I enjoy.  This provoked much curiosity amongst the host family, who knew nothing of cricket, most particularly the fact that I could still be listening on Tuesday to the same game which had started the previous Thursday and that I had accurately predicted on the intervening Saturday would end in a draw three days later.   The challenge of explaining to French-speaking folk, not only the simple rudiments of cricket but the fact that the result could be predicted many days ahead (yet one still feels compelled to listen right to the end), certainly enhanced my facility with the French language but also equally confirmed many of their own preconceptions of the eccentric English.

But that common cricket challenge pales to nothing when faced with explaining to any visiting foreigner the utter illogicality of the British system of taxi-cabs.   Arrive in almost any other country of the world, from the most developed to the most basic, and you instantly know where you stand with a taxi-cab.  Usually of a common and obvious livery, stationed at popular locations or cruising the streets, it is instantly available to do your bidding, most of the time within some vaguely-regulated framework of reasonable standards and charges.  You know the deal, the driver knows the deal, a bargain ensues and a service is delivered.  Simple.

But land in Britain and you are faced with a most confusing duopoly.  There are two types of ‘taxi’ – one which you may hail or enter randomly at the roadside and one which you may not.  The former usually has a common livery (within any one local authority area that is, but different from any other locality), while the latter can be of almost any shape, size or colour but is usually plastered with an array of signs and stickers, prominently featuring phone-numbers which one is supposed to have called first to engage the vehicle for one’s use.  Even the jargon is different.  In some parts, the second type is known as a ‘minicab’, in others the term ‘private hire’ applies, but all still existing verbally within the vernacular term of ‘taxi’.

And the local authorities operate two completely separate licensing regimes to manage these.  The official ‘Hackney’ cabs are very tightly regulated and their volume is controlled by an open market in license-plates, a deliberate shortage of cabs keeping the asking-price high for the ‘plates’.   The ‘minicabs’ are generally not controlled for volume but merely by some local quality standards, the level and application of which varies greatly from place to place, yet they still bear a ‘plate’ albeit usually of a different shape, size and colour for the Hackney type.   Fares too are separately regulated, operating on different levels for the two vehicle types.

So poor Johnny Foreigner, arriving on Britain’s supposedly modern, mature and well-organised shores, is confronted with this confusing cavalcade of cabs, the historical origins of which will never register in his troubled-traveller brain.   Because it doesn’t matter.   All this needy customer wants is to be driven safely, from where he is to where he wants to be, in a vehicle under his own direction – that’s all.  He couldn’t care less about the history of horse-drawn Hackney carriages, the protection of trade monopolies, the back-room deals in Hackney-plates, the multiple charging-rates, the preference of that local authority’s current cab-boss for white cars over yellow cars or whatever – none of that matters.  He just wants the same, simple, standard service he knows and expects everywhere else on the planet.

Explaining leg-before-wicket, silly-mid-off or deep square-leg to any J. Foreigner may be difficult but it is at least satisfying because there is an underlying logic to the game.  Trying to explain the bizarre two-cab system is both frustrating and profoundly embarrassing.  How can Britain purport to be ‘open for business’ when it structures a simple business like the common taxi-cab in such an illogical way ?   If your first British business experience after leaving the Arrivals Hall is to greet the complexity of these multi-cab formats (“Sorry, guv, I can’t pick you up, you’ll have to phone this number first – but that similar car parked next to me can take you”), are you likely to feel good about bringing your multi-billion dollar industry here ?

Britain may take much legitimate pride in some of its long and noble history but there is a time when some of those historical features should be sacrificed for the overall good.   This taxi-nonsense is a prime candidate, to which list others in the Snug may wish to add their own favourites for elimination.

Ancient + Tattered
Airman October 3, 2012 at 12:36

Britain must seem to be living in a surreal time warp to whoever stops to
think about it – us Brits included.
Consider the Duke of Cornwall. In 1337
the population of the Duchy had to pay for the privilege of having him. They
did not ask for him but they were, after all ‘the foreigners of the horn’ as
the Anglo-Saxons called them and the other Brits were not desperately keen to
pay for the upkeep of the King’s first born son. So a ‘result’ at the time and
the English could breathe easily knowing some other luckless sods would pay
for him and his heirs in perpetuity.
That situation pertains to this day.
In the UK if anyone dies intestate their money goes to the Crown. Not Queen
Elizabeth but to disbursements to charities. In Cornwall intestate money goes
to the Duke and does not have to be accounted for. Any land dispute regarding
the Duchy or the foreshore is doomed to failure by the commoners. Why? Courts
swear loyalty to the Crown – and who is next in line to wear that crown?
Unlike the rest of the UK the Cornish cannot expect the right to equality
before the law. I sadly rest my case.

Peter Melia October 2, 2012 at 20:00

Mudplugger has an interesting idea, which is, that because some aspect of
British life differs from something, somewhere, anywhere, else, then it should
be changed to conform with his conception of a global norm.
By no stretch
of the imagination can standardising the style or anything else of British
taxis be considered as being “for the common good…”.
For the common good of
whom, it might be asked? Foreigners who have taken up abode here? They
probably got over it within the first week. Visitors? Don’t they visit Britain
because of it’s….Britishness? In fact, visitors (who on the whole, are quite
bright) will soon start to get the glimmering of understanding taxis, whereas
it is quite likely that the vast majority of them will get back home still
utterly baffled by cricket.
Speak if you can, when next you are in a
foreign country, to any friendly foreigner you can find (there are millions of
them) and ask them their reasons for visiting the UK. Can it be the weather?
Hardly. Can it be the high mountains, the mighty gorges, the enormous raging
rivers, the ski slopes, the unending rolling plains of wheat or sunflowers or
whatever? Hardly. Why then do they go? When pressed they’ll probably scratch
their heads trying to think of just why exactly, did they go. Then they’ll
tell you. It’s because of the British, and the way the British do
things.
Go further, ask then what they think of cricket, this will probably
get under their guard, and you may well be blessed with a knowing smile and a
light tapping of their forehead.
But on the whole, they like what they
find.
Thurber writes of running out of petrol on a lonely country road.
They were newly arrived in the country, quite lost, did not know anyone, much
less where the nearest gas station was. And as they were standing there,
wondering….a man walked out of a gap in a nearby hedge with a can of petrol,
which he used to top-up their tank, gave them directions, wished them happy
holiday, and then vanished back into the hedge.
Thurber was very happy with
Britain.
Chesterton said “..the rolling English drunkard made the rolling
English road…”. Now that being inebriated in public is illegal, the rolling
English road will slowly but surely be ironed out.
Surely the more we
perpetuate our little local differences, the better we’ll be.
It is our
peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, that contribute to what we are.

Mudplugger
October 3, 2012 at 10:54

I do actually agree with you – the greatest fascination in visiting other
countries is in observing the differences in culture, behaviour and
structures of everyday life and sampling as many as you can while
there.
Those differences in Britain, whether it is driving on the left or
drinking warm beer, measured in pints but served in differently shaped
glassware and with different levels of ‘head’ in different parts of the
country, is part of the essential character which we display and
celebrate.
My issue with the taxi-cab format (and its ilk) is that this
is just an administrative nonsense with no redeeming features, which can
only project the nation in a negative light – those elements are the target
of my frustration, not the harmless eccentricities which set us apart as a
nation with its own unique character.

Hysteria
October 3, 2012 at 11:01

and of course “tales from a small island” by Bill Bryson – a brilliant
summary of all that makes us attractive, written by a foreigner….

Ed P October 2, 2012 at 13:52

Now I understand why I had to phone for a taxi when it – the same one – was
already standing at the Plymouth hospital entrance!

Some other annoyances: archaic banking procedures, on-line purchases from
some user-unfriendly sites (e.g., when buying tickets for shows or trains) and
our insane tax system.
But if all these complicated bureaucratic
arrangements were simplified, many (pointless) jobs would be lost.

Mudplugger
October 3, 2012 at 10:39

I fear that the truth in your final sentence condemns us to continuing
inefficiency in so many aspects of life.

Engineer October 2, 2012 at 13:38

It may not be a historical feature, but a revision of the railway ticket
pricing system might be welcome. Even the railway employees can’t understand
it, and how can it be right that two people making exactly the same journey at
exactly the same time, and buying their tickets at the same time can end up
paying significantly different fares?

On the subject of Test Match Special, I was slightly startled when the
Iranian response to their being caught out by a spoof American story about
support for Armanidinnerjacket cited mistakes made by TMS commentators in
their defence. I can’t quite see the link, but it’s heartening to know that
the famous Test Match Special Legover incident (search for that on Youtube for
a welcome blast of dear old Johnners) has reached even Iran. Mind you, it was
the finest piece of Radio ever broadcast….

Mudplugger
October 3, 2012 at 10:37

I’m with you on rail fares. I recall the days when our tiny, two-line,
local station could sell you a ticket to any other BR station, the only
price-variants being based on First or Second Class, Single or Return, Adult
or Child. The current incomprehensible monster, not only configured to
optimise expensed-travellers, but also creates the ridiculous situation
where someone leaving a train before their nominated destination (i.e.
declining a part of the journey for which they had already paid) can be
penalised for ‘breach of contract’ and compelled to pay a higher fare for
the shorter element of their trip. Try explaining that one to a visitor.
Nationalisation had its flaws, but the simple nationwide distance-travelled
equation had its attractions.

Pud October 3, 2012 at 12:56

Fares also didn’t make sense under nationalised British Rail. I
remember asking for a return ticket (out Saturday morning, back Sunday
evening) and being told it was cheaper to buy a day return for both legs
of the journey.

Andrew Duffin
October 2, 2012 at 13:09

It’s something to do with the fact that taxi-driving is about the limit of
the intellectual ability of most local cooncillors.

So they get off on making it as complicate as possible and ensuring not too
many people get to compete with their mates and drive the fares down.

Ted Treen October 2, 2012 at 13:16

So THAT’s why they work on bank holidays…

Takes too long to retrain ‘em if they have a Monday off?

Hysteria October 2, 2012 at 12:50

on ‘splainin things to others – the best metaphor I heard ( in relation to
WTF we need to turn off a Kindle in an airplane and addressing the cabin staff
on said topic) “it’s like trying to describe heaven to bears…”

m.barnes October 2, 2012 at 11:42

Thank you Mudplugger. You’ve just succeeded in making me think about an
ordinary everyday subject in a totally new way. It *is* mad isn’t it!

Disappointed with the 20/20 cricket result. I have a sinking feeling the
wheel of sporting time has turned and we have re-entered that dreaded period
when watching the English cricket team was a wriggling torture. You know the
odds are against a win but still you watch because maybe… just maybe *this*
time…..

GildasTheMonk
October 2, 2012 at 08:30

I am most pleased to hear of your successful Summer of Love Mudplugger. But
explaining cricket to the French? Or the Americans? What a task. Like trying
to explain a sunset to a halibut.

Anna
Raccoon October 2, 2012 at 08:38

Or economics to Ed Balls!

Ted Treen
October 2, 2012 at 09:01

A Sisyphean task indeed…

Even Ronal Reagan with his jellybean counters was more knowledgeable
than our Ed “Talking” Balls…