"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
Apparently Livingstone wants to fit GPS-controlled speed limiters to buses
and taxis which will prevent them from ever breaking the speed limit.


http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles...nderbonnet.htm

The consequences seem fairly obvious to me.

1) Taxis will become significantly slower than minicabs, and so will
become
a distress purchase for people who can't get a minicab. People will prefer
any minicab, even an illegal one, to a taxi.

2) Car drivers will do everything they can to prevent taxis pulling out in
front of them, so that they won't be held up. This will make taxis even
slower with respect to minicabs.

3) Taxi drivers will earn less money, because there will be less demand
for
them, and they will take longer to do the jobs that they get but won't get
any extra money for them. Minicab drivers will earn more money, because
there will be more demand for minicabs.

4) Although taxis will probably survive in Central London, they will cease
to exist in the suburbs, because there will be no point in spending a year
or more doing the suburban knowledge and buying or hiring an expensive
wheelchair-accessible vehicle if you can earn more money as a minicab
driver.

5) The decimation of the suburban taxi trade and growth of the minicab
trade
will mean that the disabled won't be able to get around at all.


This rather hysterical scenario is all based on a false premise.

People don't choose to use a black cab because they think the driver will
break the speed limit to get them home quicker. The black cab's advantages
are all to do with safety, reliability, solidity, legality, etc. So they
have nothing to fear from this measure. It could even become a selling
point.

If I wanted a driver to speed, I'd avoid black cabs and offer a minicab
driver an extra fiver. I very rarely see black cabs speeding.

Jim