Wow! I just seen a 60 minutes show about the black cabs of London. The show was talking about how Wayve, which is an autonomous taxi cab service is taking over in London and competing with Lyft, Uber, and the historical black cabs of London.
One black cab driver who was on this show didn’t think that Wayve or those other cab services were going to take his spot and he was very confident in saying that. The reason why is because the cab drivers who drive the black cabs have to learn thousands of streets and they don’t depend on Google maps or any other digital maps, or GPS systems to get where they have to go. They even have to know the fastest way to get from point A to point B. The people who drive the black cabs take their jobs very serious. In London driving a black cab is considered a prestigious career and they are very well paid to do what they do.
Here in America people don’t take being a cab driver as seriously as they do in London. For London it’s a historical thing and the knowledge one must have adds to this prestige. The test they must take is super hard cause they are expected to know thousands of streets. On this 60 Minutes show they had one guy on there who had to retake the test 40+ times before he passed and another guy 20+ times. It’s very interesting how they take it seriously and the United States of America does not. I don’t look down on any cab driver from the US but it’s just interesting to me. Black cabs are part of London’s rich historical culture and the confident guy was sure that Wayve, Lyft, or Uber was not going to take his spot.
On this show they also said that autonomous taxis are 5 times more safer than humans driving cars and this higher up of the Wayve company said they have the statistics to show this statement is true. I don’t know yet about these driverless taxis. I’m afraid they’ll cause too many accidents. Once I see for many years safer statistics with robo taxis compared with human driver statistics, then maybe I’ll give this autonomous thing a try. What I won’t do is go to London on vacation and catch me a non black cab, because I want to experience their culture. Once I arrive back home I’ll catch Waymo, Lyft, or Uber I guess.
I loved that segment on 60 Minutes today! I’m glad I could share that with you all today. I’m finished so I’m about to head out. Take care!