Monday 3 November 2008

It's Raining Cabs. Not.

There are 21,000 black cabs in London.

Unless it's raining and you need one, then there are none.


Agreed, there is a recession upon us and I know we all have to tighten our belts, but every once in a while I take the liberty to take a black cab.

And most of the time, the cabbies are perfectly fine, sometimes up for a chat, sometimes not. Sometimes you end up with one monologueing about how foreigners take all our jobs (clearly not recognising that he is driving around a foreigner) and sometimes they are just too busy handling their mobiles, a bag of crisp and driving a car at the same time.

Sometimes you find the ones with the light off who agree to pick you up because it's on the way, sometimes you find those with the light on who don't pick you up because they don't like the destination.

However, it seems that once it starts raining, they all disappear. It is impossible to find a taxi in the City when it pours down. Agreed that demand probably spikes, but hey - 21,000 cabs?

Maybe it's just that when there is a prolonged period of precipitation in London, all cabbies decide to go back to their houses in sunny Florida.

If you don't believe - try it: Ask your next cab driver about his house in Florida! Chances are he'll have one and he'll happily tell you about the benefits of hibernating in warmer climes.

Because that's what he does when you are being left in the rain.

1 comments:

Sharona

HA! I will DEFINITELY try that out...if I can ever catch one of those elusive cabs.