World of Taxis - Culture and History

Gaito Gazdanov's Paris
Gaito Gazdanov (in the photo at left, 1930s) was a Russian emigre who drove a taxi in Paris from 1928 to 1952. During that time, he wrote seven of his nine novels.

Gazdanov’s novel Nochnye dorogi (Night Roads) draws heavily on his life as a taxi driver. Originally titled Nochnaia doroga (Night Road) it was serialized in the emigre journal Sovremennye zapiski in 1939-1940. It did not appear as a book until 1952.

The novel was translated to French by Elena Balzanno (Chemins Nocturnes: Viviane Hamy, 1991). An English translation is not yet available.

Click here for photos and selections translated to English from French by Norman Beattie.

UK and Europe

• In Scotland, Dundee Taxi Drivers provide an annual day trip for local kids. In 2009, the date is Sunday June 7. About 40 cabs are expected to participate.

• A brief history of the London Taxi

• On James Joyce, Cab Heritage and Bloomsday, contributed by Norman Beattie

June 16 is Bloomsday. Spend a few minutes getting up to speed on the theme of cabs and cab drivers in "Ulysses" by James Joyce. This is another delightful collection of images and text from Norm Beattie. He captures the spirit of June 16, 1904 when Joyce's character Leopold Bloom took his long walk through the city of Dublin in Ireland.

• 1860 Interview with a London Cabby, by Charles Dickens, contributed by Norman Beattie

• History of the London Taxi and Victorian Horse Cabs, high quality booklets by Shire Publications in the UK.

• Official Launch of the TX1 to the London Taxi Trade. A photo spread of the event plus others photos of interest relative to the London taxi trade.

• Shire Publications, source of books on history of the London Cab and Victorian and Edwardian Horse Cabs. [Click on "Motoring" and "Forthcoming Titles"]

A 1920s coal-gas powered taxicab operated by John Lee Automobile Engineers in Keighley, England. The bag atop the vehicle stored sufficient fuel for 15 miles of driving. Fast forward to 2007...according to an article in The Conservative, more than 1000 taxicabs in the Chinese city of Fuxin have switched from gasoline to compressed coal-based methane (CBM) fuel.

• The London Vintage Taxi Association devoted to preservation of British taxicabs.

• Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association, London, UK

• London taxi history, part of Jamie Owens' London taxi page

• Taxi Tales, the life and times of driver-blogger Bob Barrow in Furness, Cumbria

• Nash's Numbers, London driver Alan Nash has crunched the numbers for just about everything. Highly recommended for drivers who are compiling listings of night spots, theaters, etc.

-Photo supplied by FreeFoto.com

The colorful London "black cabs" of today

• Taxi Talk is a monthly publication, an independent voice for the licenced taxi and private hire trade

• Taxi Tales site for UK drivers to share their stories

• Taxi Blog hosted by the Elite Taxi Group for UK taxi drivers

• NetXposure, high quality historical taxi photo calendars from London driver Vince Chin

• Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK

• London Taxi Media and Marketing

• A Bristol Taxi Driver, by Mike Maddock in Bristol, UK

• Jeremiah Ryan's Taxi Ireland, what's happening with Ireland's taxi industry, including news, Dublin rates of fare and permit prices.

• Cabbie's on the Loose, humorous home page from the Isle of Guernsey. Includes the story of Sarnia Mike's haunted taxi.

- From a postcard, date unknown

A Paris horse cab driver enjoying a glass of his favorite beverage. Note the early taximeter.

• Vance Thompson (1863-1925) was an American author who wrote novels, short stories, nonfiction books and journalism. He travelled widely in Europe, and between 1903 and 1908 he published five articles in Outing magazine on horse cab drivers in Paris, London, Dublin and New York and on gondoliers in Venice. Taken together the five articles form a kind of cross-cultural survey of cab driving in the twilight of the horsedrawn era. Many thanks to Norman Beattie of Winnipeg for preparing this outstanding collection of text and photos, one of the best and most interesting historical works on Taxi-L.

• Joe-le-taxi site mostly in French has photographs of Joe's miniature taxis collection

A male passenger makes a ribald suggestion to the lady horse cab driver.
Postcard from the Femmes Cocher collection gathered by Norman Beattie.

• The delightful Femmes Cocher collection of postcards from the early 1900s celebrates the role of women in the Paris horse cab trade. Many thanks to Winnipeg librarian (and former taxicab driver) Norman Beattie for this visual treat combined with sound historical research.

• Many thanks to the Union des Taxis Ruraux for links to three French-language taxi sites: Forum de discussion des taxis francophones, and Annuaire des taxis francophones, and Forum formation taxi

• Photo of Paris taxis during WWI transporting troops to the front. See also an 18-second video clip of this historic moment relating to the First Battle of the Marne.

• "Chemins Nocturne" and other works by Gaito Gazdanov are available in French from Editions Viviane Hamy. See also Norman Beattie's web essay and photos on Gazdanov.

• Portal del Taxi Europeo, personal page of M. Tomas, president of the Confederación Europea del Taxi

• Sindicat del Taxi de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

• Taxi de Barcelona, directed to the taxi driving community in Barcelona, Spain

• Idee e notizie sul mondo del Taxi, Italian taxi blog

• Taxi-in-Berlin, German language page with news and links to cab services

• Funk Taxi Berlin, website of the Berliner Cab Owners Association, includes versions in German and English

• HalloTaxi, Hungarian language online taxi magazine

• Website of Poór Lajos, driver in the Budapest area of Hungary

• Journalist and driver Peppe Arnigne in Stockholm Sweden, relative to his work situation and his travels through south-east Asia

One of the 1920s Diamond Cab Staff photos gathered by Norm Beattie

Canada

• Norm Beattie offers a graphic history of the taxi industry in Winnipeg. This is one of the best image collections on Taxi-L...highly recommended!

• Ms. Cab Driver, a Woman Cab Driver in Winnipeg, contributed by Norman Beattie

• Continuity and Discontinuity in Canadian Cab History, by Donald. F. Davis, October 1998

• Website devoted to the issues of Canadian taxi drivers

• Fredericton, New Brunswick driver's blog offers news, views and photos.

• The Ballad Of George Alfred Beckett, text and recording about the murder of taxi driver Nick Marthos in 1930.

• TaxiBadges.com is a historical collection of North American taxi and chauffeur badges...hundreds of photos, highly recommended.

United States

Title page from the 1921 printing of The Owl Taxi. Right click
to download the 14.5 MB full-length detective novel set
in Manhattan. Document courtesy of Norman Beattie.

• The American Memory site of the US Library of Congress has many historic taxi photos. Norm Beattie suggests using "taxi cab taxicab" as the search words, and limiting the search to "Photos and Prints."

• Live streaming video from New York City's Taxi Talk program 10:30 pm on Friday nights; click on MNN's Channel 67. Also on the web, live-streaming Taxi Talk radio from WWRL-1600 AM on Friday afternoons between 2:30 pm and 3:00 pm New York City time.

• NYCabbie, See New York City through the photos of a cab driver

• NY City Cab is a resource for yellow medallion cab drivers and operators, including advertised vehicles for sale and driver positions available.

• A wealth of taxi research by Bruce Schaller is available at Schaller Consulting of New York, NY.

• Master Cabbie school of New York City describes itself as the largest taxi driver training center in the world.

• Organizer and college professor Biju Mathew's book "Taxi! Cabs and Capitalism in New York City" covers the history of the taxi industry in NYC, and the growth and successes of the NY Taxi Workers' Alliance. Published in 2005, the book is available from Amazon.com for about $16.

• Rules of the Road: Hitting the Books at Taxi College by Debra Boyce,article in Columbia University News Service about NYC taxi school

-Courtesy of the Design Trust for Public Space

The MiniModal concept taxi for NYC by Hybrid Product Design + Development. It features large glass windows and roof panels to offer passengers better views. The MiniModal is one of several fascinating design innovations emerging from the exhibit Rethinking New York City's Moveable Public Space at Parsons The New School for Design from November 2005 through January 2006.

• Our Checkered Past, American Heritage, December 1992

• Original Sales Literature including Checkers, by McLellan's Automotive History

• Surge Checker Cabs

• No Guns, No Knives, No Personal Checks—The Tales of a San Francisco Cab Driver by Larry Sager, garnered the 2007 Benjamin Franklin Award for the Best First Book (Fiction) from the Independent Publishers Marketing Association earlier this year.

• New York water taxi service September 2002

• Healaurdon's Taxi News from a driver in the Boston area

• Edward Dalton of Providence, Rhode Island offers heart-felt views from behind the wheel in his book "Real Cab Rides;" more at Isis of Providence

• "To Insure Prejudice: Racial Disparities in Taxicab Tipping," article by Ian Ayres, Fredrick E. Vars and Nasser Zakariya in the Yale Law Journal, Vol. 114, 2005. Read an excerpt from the article. The study analyzed data on more than 1000 tips to taxicab drivers in New Haven, Connecticut in 2001 and found significant differences based on the race of both driver and passenger.

• Ragtime Jack, Denver's trumpet playing taxi driver.

• The Ultimate Taxi, Aspen Colorado

• Confessions of a Key West Cabby by Michael Suib

• The Alliance, Las Vegas driver coalition of labor organizations

• Las Vegas taxi Driver offers news, information and tips for Las Vegas taxi drivers and the riding public.

• "Customers Like You Make Me Want To Go Back To Being A Hooker: The Life and Times of a Corrupt Las Vegas Taxi Cab Driver," book by Patty Noland available at www.authorhouse.com

- Courtesy of Supervisor Tom Ammiano's office

"Red White Cab Co", a painting by Lawrence Montgomery, is on display in San Francisco City Hall. View a larger image of the painting.

• The Save A Cabbie website, hosted by Daniel James Szekely of Tennessee, maintains a database of over 1850 non-fatal assaults and provides news on current issues concerning cab driver safety.

• Joni Hansen's Taxi Cab Page

• Joni Hansen's Taxi Cards

• Unusual taxicabs on location, photos from Joni Hansen

• Driving Poor: Taxi Drivers and the Regulation of the Taxi Industry in Los Angeles by Professors Gary Blasi and Jacqueline Leavitt of UCLA. (460kb PDF)

- Courtesy of Bruce Carlton

Drivers at a taxi garage in San Francisco, probably the early 1920s. View a larger version of the photo.

• July 2003 boycott at the San Francisco Hilton, a photo essay on the Taxis SF website

• United Taxicab Workers of San Francisco, drivers' group affiliated with Communications Workers of America

• SF Taxi Drivers' Institute, offers a course that satisfies the training requirement for a San Francisco "A-card" driver permit.

• San Francisco driver Bud Carson invites readers to check out the first chapter of his book My Fare City

• Taxis and San Francisco Labor History: The First 100 Years, an article on the Taxicabs San Francisco website, reviews the ebb and flow of organized labor's ability to influence working conditions among taxicab drivers during the 20th Century; includes historical photographs courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library.

• ProCabbie, by Las Vegas driver Charles Graham.

• Early Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada, as it was in times past, by taxi driver Erik Wunstell.

• Video of Las Vegas cab drivers protesting a 2008 change in rules regarding tips to drivers from business establishments.

• "Mystic Gypsy Mavericks, Dharmic Visions of a Vegas Cabbie" is the 2005 book by Las Vegas driver Tim Hollis. Read an extract from the book or contact CafePress to obtain hardcopy and digital editions.

• "Driven to Spread The Word," article about Norfolk (Virginia) drivers' chapter of the Christian Cabbie Fellowship.

• The Taxi, John Parker's web site including the Honolulu Taxi Regulations.

• Sonoma Clown Cab, web page of a California driver bringing humor to his work

• Los Angeles Taxi Workers Alliance

• Trailer for a 2008 video on the theme of Driving Poor in Los Angeles by Aman G.Fesehaye.

Australia and New Zealand

• Australian Taxi Drivers Association represents drivers and their organizations.

• New Zealand Taxi Federation with links to member companies

• How New Zealand Handles Taxi Driver Access Denial

Toy taxicabs from the collection of Cliff Lundberg

• NSW Taxi Drivers Association in Sydney, Australia

• Victoria Transport Policy Institute, an independent research organization dedicated to developing innovative and practical solutions to transportation problems, located in Victoria, British Columbia. Tries to identify the full benefits, costs and equity impacts of alternative transportation policies and programs.

• Taxi Service Improvements, by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, Australia

• Victorian Taxi Association, Australia

• New South Wales Ministry of Transport

Taxi chic

Asia

• Kentin, Shanghai Taxi Painter, uses the hoods of Volkswagen Santana taxicabs as his canvas.

• PILTOP, Manila association of drivers and company managers, The Pinag-Isang Lakas ng Taksi Drayber at Operator ng Pilipinas; see also the Manila drivers' discussion group

• Outlawed in China for decades, the rickshaw is back, 23 June 1999

• Female cabbies begin work in United Arab Emirates, AP NewsWire, 7 Jun 2000

• Photos of Tokyo Roof Top Taxi Lanterns, Japan

• Democracy Now hosts a trailer for the film Taxi To The Dark Side which is about abuses in the war on terror. The taxi in the title refers to the killing in custody of a taxi driver named Dilawar in Afghanistan. The film won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

Africa

• El Khamissy’s Taxi, Tales of Rides about Cairo taxi drivers will be translated in English and turned into a TV series.

• The Job-creating Potential of the Metered Taxi Industry in South Africa’s Urban Areas: Some Preliminary Findings by Sandra Lowitt, Research Associate, Employment Growth and Development Initiative, Human Sciences Research Council. (426KB pdf)

- Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

A Cameroonian bush taxi. Toyota minibus-taxis are the primary mode of public transport in large areas of Africa.

Variety

• The Cab Ride, the Intenet's most repeated cab driver tale, author unknown.

• What sustaines social norms and how do they evolve? The case of tipping, and article by economist Ofer H. Azar (258KB pdf). Originally published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the paper presents a model of the evolution of social norms. From the abstract: "When a norm is costly to follow and people do not derive benefits from following it except for avoiding social disapproval, the norm erodes over time. Tip percentages, however, increased over the years, suggesting that people derive benefits from tipping, such as impressing others and improving their self-image as being generous and kind." See this document page for more information about the paper.

• The History of Tipping - From Sixteenth-Century England to United States in the 1910s (281KB pdf) by Dr. Ofer Azar. The abstract: "Tipping is a multi-billion-dollar phenomenon that challenges the traditional assumption of selfish economic agents who have no feelings and do not care about social norms. This article reviews the early history of tipping and offers an economic analysis of different aspects of tipping. Using the historical evidence, it then addresses two major questions about tipping: why do people tip? And does tipping improve service quality? The reasons for tipping changed over the years, but conforming to social norms and avoiding embarrassment were generally the main reasons. Tipping seems to improve service quality; the extent of the improvement varies across occupations." See this document page for more information on the paper.

• Other works on tipping by Dr. Ofar Azar, an economist at Northwestern University and Ben-Gurion University.

The Three Stooges take a 1940s Bronx taxicab on a trip out west.

• Mega Tips - Scientifically Tested Techniques to Improve Your Tips by Dr. Michael Lynn, Associate Professor at the School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University. (586KB pdf)

• Why Do We Tip Taxicab Drivers? by David Flath, North Carolina State University - Department of Economics, September 2004

  Abstract:
  The leading economic explanation for tipping - that is, explanation why the practice is socially beneficial, not why individuals leave tips even though it is not narrowly advantageous to them - is that it confers an incentive to provide personal services. This fits many instances in which tipping is common but does not fit the taxicab business very well. We propose two novel explanations of tipping that do fit the taxi case. The first is that tipping might represent Lindahl pricing of the services of vacant cabs (essentially, reduced waiting time), a local public good for taxi customers. The second is that the actual fare for a cruising cab is de facto a matter of negotiation between the cab driver and the customer. Tipping thus represents a frank acknowledgment that the posted fare or regulatory determined fare is non-binding; the tip is simply the portion of the agreed fare in excess of the regulated one.

A wheelchair accessible bicycle rickshaw in India. Appropriate technology provides work for this driver and transportation for his passenger. Access Exchange International works on transportation access issues worldwide.

• To Insure Prejudice: Racial Disparities in Taxicab Tipping by Ian Ayres , Fredrick E. Vars and Nasser Zakariya of Yale Law School, Miller Shakman & Hamilton and Harvard University

  Abstract:
  We collected data on over 1000 taxicab rides in New Haven, CT in 2001. After controlling for a host of other variables, we find two potential racial disparities in tipping: (1) African-American cab drivers were tipped approximately one-third less than white cab drivers; and (2) African-American passengers tipped approximately one-half the amount of white passengers (African-American passengers are 3.7 times more likely than white passengers to leave no tip).

  Many studies have documented seller discrimination against consumers, but this study tests and finds that consumers discriminate based on the seller's race. African-American passengers also participated in the racial discrimination. While African-American passengers generally tipped less, they also tipped black drivers approximately one-third less than they tipped white drivers.

  The finding that African-American passengers tend to tip less may not be robust to including better controls for passenger social class. But it is still possible to test for the racialized inference that cab drivers (who also could not directly observe passenger income) might make. Regressions suggest that a "rational" statistical discriminator would expect African Americans to tip 56.5% less than white passengers.

  These findings suggest that government-mandated tipping (via a "tip included" decal) might reduce two different types of disparate treatment. First, mandated tipping would directly reduce the passenger discrimination against black drivers documented in this study. Second, mandated tipping might indirectly reduce the widely-documented tendency of drivers to refuse to pick up black passengers.

• Taxicab numbers are a curiosity in mathematics, a function of cubes. Unfortunately, the series grows to large numbers so rapidly that only two "taxicab numbers" (2 and 1729) could possibly be the numbers on real-world cabs.

• Myths, Mysteries and Truths, a collection of short essays about the taxicab industry, by Terry Smythe over some 14 years.

First day issue of a commemorative postage stamp issued by the United States Postal Service, 2002

• Taxi Dreams, background for a PBS feature film

• What rain? taxi dispatch simulator compares closest-cab, oldest-order strategies, etc.

• FAQ - Hiring Independent Contractors , by NOLO - Law For All

• Victoria Cabs wins an award for its waste-reduction and recycling efforts

• Portraits of Hope Garden in Transit, taxicabs beautifully decorated as therapy

• St. Fiacre, patron saint of cab drivers is memorialized each year on August 30

• National Acadamy of Sciences, Transportation Research Board

• Home page of Find Law, a resource for legal research includes text of laws and cases. This example of a search result displays the text of a Virginia taxi decision in a Worker Compensation case.

• Service Excellence, by Terry Smythe, Manitoba Taxicab Board, September 1990

• Taking Service Seriously by Terry Smythe

• Taxi Driver Professionalism, by Gord Barton

• Me! - A Taxi Driver, Something to be Proud Of!, by Gord Barton

• Taxi Driver Ten Commandments, by Gord Barton

• Yellow Cab, by anthropology professor Robert Leonard, is a portrait of the city he found while moonlighting as a cab driver on the streets of nighttime Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Taxi publications

• The Taxi News, online digest of news updated frequently.

• Many hundreds of taxi news items were harvested from the worldwide press on the Internet by Terry Smythe. These archives of the collected articles are in zip format up to 2.5 MB in size. They contain text files arranged by month of the year: 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003

• TLC Magazine, New York City trade publication.

• Chicago Dispatcher, online version of hardcopy monthly newsletter for Chicago area drivers.

• 96.5 Inner FM Taxi Show, hosted by Melbourne driver David Gawthorn

• TaxiMagazin for drivers in Germany

• The London Taxi Trades Premier Site, the online magazine of the Licenced London Taxi Trade in partnership with the London Taxi Times

• Call Sign, in-house journal of Dial-A-Cab, London, UK

• TaxiNews online edition of Toronto Taxi News, edited by John Duffy

Taxicabs and taxi drivers are a frequent theme in popular culture

• The Taxicab, Limousine and Paratransit Association has multiple taxi publications.

• Taxi-List, international email discussion group with daily news and views for industry participants, successor to the original TAXI-L email list

• Taxis Unlimited Worldwide, a forum for cab drivers

• Taxi Drivers of America, a forum for cab drivers

• Webring of 22 taxi-related sites

• alt.taxi.world, a newsgroup on UseNet

[ Back to top ]