What’s so great about London. And not. – Black Cabs

Black Cabs easily make my list of London’s Seven Wonders. Black cabs are everywhere to be found. They are fast. They are highly comfortable. And of course, the drivers are dazzlingly knowledgeable.

I do love the moment I step into the back of the cab effortlessly, keeping nearly horizontal as if into a horse carriage. I love rolling my luggage next to me in the car, it is a beast having to lift it into an inaccessible trunk with the driver standing next to me offering no help. I love that 4 and 5 people can all face each other during the ride. And off we go.

And the new models feature a transparent skylight. Given how you are seated in the carriage, that see-through roof is a real plus – much more so than in an ordinary car, in my opinion.

Black cabs are also fast. Not that they drive carelessly, but I find the London traffic quite bearable, likely because of the exorbitant congestion charge that you need to pay in order to drive in the center of London. Londoners might hate me for sounding so blindly happy about traffic. But when you’ve been caught in a yellow cab in New York in hopeless traffic, you love London’s Black Cab.

Of course, riding black cabs is expensive, no question. Before you can enjoy it, you need to come to terms with that simple fact: London is expensive everywhere you look. Even the local bus ride is exorbitant. It’s a big pill to swallow, no doubt.

And of course, cabbies are encyclopedic about London. I am told the test to become a London cabbie takes 3 years to pass. I understand there are over 300 basic routes – itineraries – that drivers are required to memorize in detail. I am prepared to stand up to the god of navigation software, for I do feel that the Black Cab driver who relies on his knowledge gets me places fastest and most reliably. Yes, the navigation systems are good for real-time accident reports and all that. But I find that Black Cabs are more into getting me there fast. I feel to the bone their commitment to a speedy journey.

And one reason for this speed may be very technical. The hackney carriage has an insanely small turning circle. Being in that car when it turns around is a treat. To the point where I like to hail cabs in the wrong direction, simply for the joy of seeing how they turn around on a sixpence – whatever that may be.

Now there is a lot more to the Black Cab. One historic oddity makes the Black Cab even more likable. That’s the cabmen’s shelters – those green huts where drivers can sit down and catch a hot meal and a cuppa. As I’ve been told, one eccentric lord is behind these, when he realized that cabmen were all out for lunch and unavailable. And so our lord funded these shelters, to keep drivers fed but not far. The first such shelter was close to his own home of course. Today these shelters cook basic foods. Anyone can buy that food. But only cabmen can sit inside, for the rest of us it is food on the go.

I will confess to one thing. If I had money to waste, I think I would buy a black cab with a full license. Just for myself, exclusively. I wouldn’t drive it myself, no no, left-side driving frightens me so. But if I had the money, then I could have a driver too, right? Our driver would drive us down the bus lane, in that oh so comfortable car. I would treat my friends to Black Cab rides, which I think would be a lovely gift. And when I don’t need the car, the driver could take other clients and make money for himself on the side, why not.

Now black is not the happiest of colors for a car, I feel. A bit of color would not hurt, in my personal chromatic palette. But I am not one to mess with tradition, particularly of the British sort, you never know what it might stir. And once I overlook that color black (and the price, as we discussed), I feel nothing for black cabs but love. For the man and for the machine.