If you hate waiting,
raise your hand.
It rained in Mumbai this week and my Uber wasn't coming. Nothing was. So I did the old thing: stepped to the kerb and put my hand up. A black-and-yellow stopped in about ten seconds.
On the ride home I kept thinking: everyone told me these cabs were dying. The one I was sitting in seemed fine. So I went looking at what's actually left, city by city. This page is what I found.
The first cabs waited outside a Paris inn with Saint Fiacre on the sign. So taxis are named after a pub sign, and cab drivers got a patron saint out of it. paris, the 1640s
In 1654 Parliament looked at the cab situation and capped it at 300 coaches. Governments regulating taxis is not a new thing. It is a 370-year-old thing. london, 1654
1891: a German invents the taximeter, the machine the whole trade is named after. 1897: London gets its first motor cabs. They were electric. In 1897. They failed. It took another 120 years for the idea to come back. 1891, 1897
The cab is
380 years old.
The apps are 15.
In ten cities you can still stick your arm out and a cab will stop. If an Uber driver does it, they get a fine and the car gets impounded. Scroll.