Call Sign December 2009 - Page 10 - ALLEN TOGWELL’S MARKETING PLACE

ALLEN TOGWELL’S MARKETING PLACE
Considering the number of years I’ve held a badge, I would have thought by now I would have a fair understanding of the mindset of your average cab driver. Especially during what many consider as being the worse economic downturn since the great depression of the 1930s. But two recent incidents within a week of each other involving a total of 14 cab drivers have proven me not only wrong, but also left me feeling completely baffled. Incident one... The first occasion was 8:30 on a damp, cold mid-week morning a month or so ago. I had just left Barts Hospital minor injury unit and was looking for a cab to take me back to the office. I walked down Giltspur Street to the corner of Newgate Street, feeling assured that I wouldn’t have to wait long before I saw an empty cab going in my direction. As it happened, there were quite a few empty cabs but all them travelling west. No problem, I thought, being as I was at a crossing and it was easy enough to turn round. Wrong! Seven cabs passed, all with their for hire lights on, each of them looked across at me and saw me waving and pointing east but for some odd reason they just carried on over into Holborn Viaduct as though I didn’t exist. Eventually I did the obvious and crossed over to the other side of Newgate Street and stopped the very next available cab. "East Road please," I said. "Heathrow," he replied? "No no," I said, "East Road N1 near Chart Street, please." "I don’t believe it; just my luck," was his response. "Excuse me asking," I said, "but is there a problem in the city that I don’t know about, such as a flood, fire or perhaps a sudden outbreak of bubonic plague? Only I’ve just had seven cabs ignore me and cannot understand why?" To which his reply was: "I don’t blame them with your ruddy lip," or words to that effect. On arriving at Dial-a-Cab House, the fare came to Ł8. I gave him Ł10 and told him to keep the change. As he took the money, he looked up and saw the name above our entrance, shook head in bewilderment and drove off without comment. Incident 2... Less than a week later, at 5 o’clock on a midweek evening I had just left the ENT Hospital in Grays Inn Road and walked to the corner of Acton Street looking for a cab to take me back to our office. The reason I walked to Acton Street was so any cab driver travelling north would have the opportunity to do a U-turn before entering the one-way system. After a few minutes I saw five empty cabs following each other, all with their for hire signs on travelling up Grays Inn Road heading towards Kings X. Traffic was busy so they weren’t going	very fast, yet each one of them having acknowledged me waving, to my surprise just continued on past. So again I crossed the road with the intention of getting the very next available cab when sods law, I saw an empty cab coming up Acton Street so I chased back across the road and indicated for it to turn left into Grays Inn Road. "East Road N1 by Chart Street please," I said and off we went. I attempted to get into conversation with the driver about the cabs that hadn’t stopped, but without success because the driver was talking non-stop into one of those mobile phones that looks like a cigarette lighter stuck in one ear. So I kept quiet until we had gone almost the whole length of Grays Inn Road. Then I tapped on the glass partition to ask which way was he going? "Down to Holborn," he said, "chuck a left, Holborn Circus, Charterhouse Street. Why what’s the problem?" "Well," I said, "the problem is I asked for East Road by Chart Street, not Charterhouse Street." "Oh yeah, so you did," he replied and then proceeded to configure the SatNav that I then noticed was sitting, brightly lit atop his dashboard. Curious that the driver, a young smartly dressed chap should need a SatNav for a local ride, I asked him how long had he had a Bill. He said it was 5 years and because I said Bill he asked if I was a cab driver? I said I was, of 42 years standing and I also said I found it odd that not only was he using a SatNav, but that he felt no shame in letting the public see that he was using one! He said five of his cab driver friends used them and they all thought they were great. "Maybe," I responded, "but in your case your SatNav and that mobile stuck in your ear are evidently affecting your ability to concentrate on where you are supposed to be going and also I would imagine that in time it will cause you to lose the knowledge you must have worked so hard to acquire." He disagreed and said it didn’t bother him at all. Neither, apparently, did it bother him when we eventually arrived at Dial-a-Cab House and he charged me Ł16 for the fare that should have been half that cost. On receiving my change, I was debating whether to give a tip when without a word he just drove off, more preoccupied with whomever he was talking to on his mobile. Which left me baffled on two counts. Firstly, why on earth should any licensed cab driver have a need of a SatNav for local rides, particularly a driver who’s only had a Bill five years and	whose knowledge is likely to still be at its peak? And secondly, I’m especially baffled as to why so many cab drivers should refuse a fare simply because it required going in the opposite direction from which they were travelling? I’m reasonably well dressed; I know I’m slim, but I’m not invisible. I can understand the odd occasion when a driver might need to be heading in a particular direction. But surely not seven consecutive cabs in the City at 8:30 in the morning and five cabs at 5oclock in the evening? It just doesn’t make any sense. The only positive note from this very unusual experience is that none of the cabs in question were carrying a radio circuit’s logo. Rear windscreen advertising In early November a statement was issued by the PCO approving the placing of advertisement material on the rear windscreen of licensed London taxis. I believe it appears in this issue. The position of the advertising must only be on the lower 33.3% of the rear windscreen glass and the material construction must be of a perforated one-way vision film, which will allow the image/graphic to be seen from the outside of the vehicle but must not be visible from inside the vehicle when looking out of the rear windscreen. *What the rear advertising would look like* Obviously advertising your Society at the rear of your taxi would not have the same impact as advertising on the side doors, however any advertising on a London taxi is a powerful medium, even on the rear of the taxi and it is hoped it may appeal to many of you that do not as yet carry our cash booking number on the sides of your cabs. The cost of this one-way vision film together with the printing is quite expensive, so only a limited number will be purchased to start with. However, should there be a noticeable interest from drivers wishing to have this rear window advertising, then of course we will make arrangements to meet that demand. At the time of going to print, we have yet to obtain the necessary samples to submit to the PCO for their approval. But to give you some idea of what the rear advertising might look like, I have produced a computer-generated image. Allen Togwell DaC Marketing

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