Word: minicabs
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...There's another twist, I tell her. I live inside the congestion charging zone, so will be expected to pay $50 every time I take the car out of the garage on a weekday. That's almost the cost of a minicab journey to Heathrow. Or a pizza dinner. I'll have to swap the Mercedes for a new car and my carbon footprint will get bigger. "If you hardly drive it, that's a really good point," she says. "There are people like you, but hopefully not too many. People with very old, well-looked-after Mercedes are probably...
...Tall. Buntin's minicab, and others like it, are pitted against 6,600 time-tested dinosaurs of the London taxi world. What arouses the ire of the traditional cabbies is that minicabs are operating without taxi licenses and thus can ignore the stringent regulations that made a London cab 1) expensive to build and 2) one of the world's ugliest but most comfortable vehicles. Some of the regulations, as laid down in the ancient Metropolitan Carriage Act of 1869: each cab must be 14 ft. 11 7/16 in. long, big enough to seat five persons comfortably, high...
...minicab owners get around this situation by claiming that the red tape applies only to cabs that "ply for hire" on the streets. They insist they answer only calls that are phoned to the main office and then radioed to a parked or cruising minicab that makes the pickup. One shrewd owner, an Irish-Indian go-getter named Michael Gotla, will allow his mini cabs to be flagged down by passengers; the driver will then hand his car phone to the customer and ask him to place his order with the dispatcher at headquarters, who will solemnly repeat...
Matilda's Trunk. The Battle of Belgrave Square proved a victory of sorts for the minicabs' cause. The spectacle of big taxis ganging up on a tiny minicab aroused Londoners' traditional sympathy for the underdog, as well as delight at the prospect of cheaper fares. Almost every one had a story about a rude old-style cabby who took him to his destination the long way round, or short-changed him, or passively watched as dear old Aunt Matilda wrestled with her steamer trunk. "That's the public for you," lamented a veteran cabby...
Last week the desperate regular cabmen swooped down on another minicab, again in Belgrave Square. But Owner Tom Sylvester is buying 75 more Fiats to add to the 25 he already has. In suburban Wimbledon, a fleet of minicabs is being expanded to 50. And canny Michael Gotla has placed an order for 800 Renault Dauphines that will be cruising the streets of London before the end of the year...
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