A great mate of mine is a London black taxi driver. For some years, he juggled working full-time as a window fitter with ‘Doing the Knowledge’, which is the exacting process of learning London’s streets and landmarks until they are as familiar to a future cabbie as the back of their hand.
We celebrated long into the night when he finally qualified to drive one of the iconic taxis that are rightfully famed around the world.
Having the cabbie’s green badge around his neck has allowed my buddy to work flexible hours, which was very helpful when his children were young, and proved to be absolutely crucial when a family member had a period of ill-health.
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He has also been able to buy a delightful semi-detached home, and to treat his family to an annual holiday on foreign shores. Exactly the kind of trappings that working-class-lads-done-good like me and my mate should be able to aspire to.
I used Uber for the first and last time. What happened to me inside that car was disgraceful - Peter Bleksley | Uber/X
Ever since the wretched Sir Sadiq Khan was elected Mayor of London, it seems he has done all he can to damage, if not finish off, the London black cab industry.
I’ve always found it strange that a Labour politician would do so much to harm the prospects of working-class people climbing the social ladder.
Perhaps Khan and other politicians of his ilk actually like the grafters of this nation to remain firmly in their place, so they’ll continue to vote for dross like him.
Khan and his flunkies have closed off numerous roads to taxis by the imposition of ‘Bus Gates’. A heap of unnecessary bureaucracy has been foisted upon cabbies, and many tens of thousands of licences have been issued to Uber drivers, who most certainly do not learn ‘The Knowledge’, but rely slavishly on whatever their satnav tells them. In light of all the above, I promised my mate that I would never use an Uber.
For over a decade, I was a man of my word. Then on Friday, I ventured down to a delightful village in Kent in order to have a few beers with a former colleague.
We went back to his house for that most perfect of post-beers food, cheese on toast (Brown sauce of course), and it soon became obvious that the only way for me to make the ten-mile journey back to my London suburb was to order an Uber.
I felt a huge sense of disloyalty to my cab-driving mate as I tapped my postcode into the app. I received a first-time user discount, and was to be ferried home for less than fifteen quid.
Nine minutes later, a saloon car arrived bang on time. So far, so good, I thought. My cheating heart was feeling a sense of justification about all of this. And then it went wrong, very wrong.
I introduced myself with my customary, ‘Good evening and thank you for this,' to which I received a mumbled reply that I couldn’t decipher.
It appeared to me that English was not this driver’s first language. He took an alternative route to the one I would have taken, which in normal circumstances wouldn’t have bothered me, except for the fact that he drove like a lunatic.
Country lanes were navigated as if he were rallying, and my heart was firmly in my mouth. We were soon on the A2, a three-lane carriageway. His speed still felt excessive as I worked myself some slack from the seatbelt.
I leaned sideways and craned my neck to look at the speedometer, which read 82 miles per hour. I told the driver to slow down.
I don’t like being ignored, but I was. I raised my voice to a bellow and once again instructed this reckless and dangerous fool to reduce his speed to the legal limit of 70mph. I added a few words about how he was welcome to kill himself, but not when I was sitting in his car.
Gradually, he slowed the vehicle. For the rest of the journey, a stony silence prevailed. When we got to my street, this clown sailed straight past my home, so once again I had to raise my voice in order to make him stop.
As I undid my seatbelt and escaped from his vehicle, I told him his driving was disgraceful, and received a grunt by way of a reply.
I took a photograph of his car for future reference, and when I got indoors, I unleashed my unhappiness on X. My post clearly chimed with many because in the next 48 hours, it was viewed 1.5 million times. Arguments raged about the benefits and pitfalls of using Uber.
I submitted a complaint to them, and they requested details of my journey. I sent them my evidence, and they sent me their platitudes. Goodbye Uber, once was enough.
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