Why, in this day and age do young girls come out of the bars and clubs in town and get into unlicensed taxis. Don't they know how dangerous that is?

beer in wits out, cant happen to me syndrome

Probably because they are drunk and there are 200 other people trying to get a taxi.

I remember getting into a car early one new year's daywith some friends. it was obvious straightaway there were not licensed - just two chancers out for some easy cash. we stayed in because it was freezing outside and a walk home was the only other option. We got home OK and he only asked for a fiver...bargain!

Why, in this day and age do young girls come out of the bars and clubs in town and get into unlicensed taxis. Don't they know how dangerous that is?

Just unlucky if you ask me. Despite the big fat 'licensed hackney carriage' photo id you get in most black cabs how do you know unless you ask them (ok there is that registration thing by the number plate) but who would have asked before all this started to happen.

Probably cold and the fcat they ant to get home. Booze clouds the judgement. I once had a young lass climb into the back of my car when i was parked and was gobsmacked. :loopy:

You will probably find that most girls who get into the back of unlicenced cabs are young ... and tipsy, its a lethal combo. I remember taking all kind of risks in my youth (yes, climbing into unlicenced taxis whilst blotto)
When your young you dont realise that it could happen to you, its just something that happens to other people, its not until you mature that you realise your own mortality and stop taking risks. Unfortunatly 99% of young girls are guilty of this once in a while (me included)
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Bmw N46 History (http://www.bmw-tech.org/wiki/BMW_N46)

You will probably find that most girls who get into the back of unlicenced cabs are young ... and tipsy, its a lethal combo. I remember taking all kind of risks in my youth (yes, climbing into unlicenced taxis whilst blotto)
When your young you dont realise that it could happen to you, its just something that happens to other people, its not until you mature that you realise your own mortality and stop taking risks. Unfortunatly 99% of young girls are guilty of this once in a while (me included)
This is a big problem, especially in cities like Sheffield and London. My Dad owns a taxi company in Chesterfield and My Dad, brother and I have recently set up a new business which allows you to book a taxi by SMS text message and obtain a unique reference for your personal safety. The company is taxibytext (www.taxibytext.co.uk) and we are currently in the middle of incorporating GPS triangulation technology, recruiting more companies around the UK and redesigning the website. I wrote the website myself but I'm a programmer not a designer so we've got a professional in to tart it up a bit and hopefully the new look site will be up in the next week or two.

I'm not trying to blag free advertising or anything here but one of our major marketing initiatives is the fact that it can be very dangerous getting in unlicensed taxis, especially in cities you are not familiar with. Our system will let you book a taxi in say London, safe in the knowledge that it is a licensed operator.

good luck ashmoral, i hope yr new venture safeguards women traveling alone, but unfortunatly many of the young girls we are talking about are reluctant to book a taxi for a return journey because they dont know what time they will be leaving to go home, its when they fall out of the night clubs, full of booze with one thing on their minds .... get out of the cold, get home and go to bed asap
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Mercury Grand Marquis History (http://www.ford-wiki.com/wiki/Mercury_Grand_Marquis)

I have done a couple of times without realising, Sometimes when I am drunk I worry about standing alone and that seems like a good idea at the time, and the fact that you don't notice until after you are in it.definately more careful these days though.

good luck ashmoral, i hope yr new venture safeguards women traveling alone, but unfortunatly many of the young girls we are talking about are reluctant to book a taxi for a return journey because they dont know what time they will be leaving to go home, its when they fall out of the night clubs, full of booze with one thing on their minds .... get out of the cold, get home and go to bed asap
Thanks. You're right but the beauty of the taxibytext system is that you just send a text message from inside the nightclub (no need to worry about not being heard on the phone) when you are ready to leave and the taxi will be outside waiting for you. You receive a text confirmation back which will tell you how long the taxi will be. We are working on many new ways to improve this service too so keep an eye out for it.

Why, in this day and age do young girls come out of the bars and clubs in town and get into unlicensed taxis. Don't they know how dangerous that is?

These people need their Mother with them, they must be naive, after all the murders and rapes reported in the news, they don't live in the real World, do they really think they are safe or don't they care : perhaps they have a death wish eh.......................

its not just girls though. hands up how many blokes have done it too?

sophie
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hands up how many blokes have done it too?

<puts hand up>
Me! :blush:

I spotted what appeared to be a licensed taxi this week.......until I noticed the registration number of the car was different to that shown on the actual license plate. :suspect: Needless to say I reported it.

Goes to show that you can't be too careful. :(

These people need their Mother with them, they must be naive, after all the murders and rapes reported in the news, they don't live in the real World, do they really think they are safe or don't they care : perhaps they have a death wish eh.......................

the problem isnt just the driver of the car (who granted may or may not be a nut job), but the actual car itself. how do you know if its roadworthy, safe, insured, etc. theres also the small matter of the 'taxi' driver actually having a valid driving license and some idea of where you want to go, never mind a proper taxi license.

i have never knowingly got in an unlicensed cab in sheffield- although i did once in london. i was with my cousins (male) who assured me that this was going to be the cheapest way to get home at 4 in the morning- i was worried the whole way, even though they knew exactly where they were.

be careful and stay safe- share cabs home with friends- its cheaper too!

sophie
x

There is a new scheme which may fix all this - it is called

Texxi - the Taxi You Text.

Texxi allows people who know each other to travel to closely located destinations together in a shared Taxi - thus minimizing cost.

It is being trialled in Liverpool first but will move out to other cities over the next 6-12months.


A seed-stage company in the UK has developed a system that collates requests for point-to-point travel from a dispersed set of travellers via SMS (they text-message by cellphone their destination postcode to the system), and then packages travellers going in the same direction into one vehicle at a discounted fare.

Texxi (“Texxi, the taxi you text”) is a demand-responsive transit brokerage (DRT Brokerage) system.

Prospective passengers send their postcode to the Texxi SMS number. The system then aggregates other passengers wanting to go to the same area and confirms details of the taxi driver’s name and badge number to the passengers.

Passengers are instructed to go to pre-determined pickup points to meet the driver who will have received a text confirming each passenger’s booking reference.

In the prototype demonstration in Liverpool, each passenger will pre-pay a flat fee of £5.

Benefits of this approach include:

*

Lower passenger fares for point-to-point travel.
*

Increased revenue for the taxi driver for essentially the same work.
*

Reduction of potential CO2 emissions and fuel consumption as the total number of trips are reduced.

Texxi is the brainchild of Crane Dragon—a new venture founded by four partners designed to develop new solutions and companies.

The concept for Texxi came from an Operational Analysis research problem applied to the financial markets. One of the four founders noticed that credit contagion algorithms he had developed in investment banking could similarly be used to aggregate groups of people going to roughly the same destination and direct them to a single vehicle maximizing the limited resources available.

The founders modeled the Texxi system on peak demand times: 11 pm–4 am on Friday and Saturday in Liverpool when there is a huge spike in demand for taxis.

There are 1,600 Hackney (Black London type) cabs and 22,000 private hire vehicles in Liverpool to serve a nominal population of 500,000. This is the highest per capita number of Hackney cabs (cabs you can hail on the street) for any city in the UK and yet at least 50% of the nighttime population will have to walk some or all of the way home most weekends.
—Eric Masaba, Crane Dragon

As a solution for getting pub revelers home safely and economically, this is mildly interesting, and with some net benefit on the emissions-reduction and fuel-efficiency side of the ledger.

Applied more broadly as a solution to reduce urban congestion and single-passenger trips at times of peak demand, however, Texxi could begin to make a measurable impact.

Furthermore, the Crane Dragon team has larger ambitions. They intend to roll out this technology to industrializing nations as soon as possible. (China is an ideal target.)

The UK postal code is currently the foundation of the system’s geo-coding. As used currently in Texxi, using the first character of the second grouping (for an explanation of the design of the UK postal code system, see here) brings everyone to about 400m of their destination. Not quite door-to-door, but a fair fit of cost and result.

For developing countries (such as in East Africa), Texxi will build its “own” postcode system using triangulation from mobile masts as an overlay guide. (And perhaps improve mail delivery as well.)

the problem isnt just the driver of the car (who granted may or may not be a nut job), but the actual car itself. how do you know if its roadworthy, safe, insured, etc. theres also the small matter of the 'taxi' driver actually having a valid driving license and some idea of where you want to go, never mind a proper taxi license.

i have never knowingly got in an unlicensed cab in sheffield- although i did once in london. i was with my cousins (male) who assured me that this was going to be the cheapest way to get home at 4 in the morning- i was worried the whole way, even though they knew exactly where they were.

be careful and stay safe- share cabs home with friends- its cheaper too!

sophie
x


Share cabs - use TEXXI the Taxi you Text

Mrs Ang-to-be's dad noticed a black BMW driving around hackenthorpe the other day and he reported seeing taxi signs on the car but at the back of the car- there was no official taxi plate that you should have if you are a registered taxi driver/service... be carefull peeps!!

Also: and this is not a dig at the ethnic minorities out there at all - but the bloke driving the car was of an asian origin - I only want to put this on here so that other people reading this can identify the car as well.
Once again- I have nothing against people of other races/religions.

Thankyou