THE KNOWLEDGE OF LONDON CAB DRIVERS
Nowadays there is no shortage of approaches and tons of technologies but among the traditional procedures of transportation is currently sticking to its guns — the London Black Cab. Officially known as the Hackney Carriage, London Cabs are required to be analyzed on”The Knowledge”: maybe the toughest test in the world! Proceed navigation over, these cabbies don’t have any need for you.
Back in the day, glove boxes were full of folded up paper maps depicting highways, interstates, and intertwined colored lines which were supposed to get you from point A to point B. Flash forward to now and that calming voice in your phone informs you turn-by-turn exactly which path to take. However, what if I advised you to rely on your own mind and took your mobile phone voice along with your paper maps away. Impossible, right? Not too much for the London cab driver that is typical!
You inform the driver where you want to go and open the door, when you jump into a London taxi, hailed down with the procedure of a raised arm. And they take you there–no GPS, no driver, no navigation. Believe It or Not! , London cabbies need to have”The Knowledge.” Knowledge is a comprehensive guide to the city that’s been required learning since 1865 for London cabbies! Great for you, but a grueling testing procedure that literally takes years to finish.
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Think it’s all crap? The driver our cheery English Cool Stuff correspondent, Adam Doricott, talked to took a total of 42 weeks to maneuver The Knowledge from beginning to finish. He talked him through the entire process…
This one is not for car values, although it begins with the Book. It comprises 320″runs” around Central London, a six-mile radius from Charing Cross Station to be exact, with a few main routes throughout the rest of London thrown in for good measure. It is detailed. Not just your route. You end up with 25,000 roads to learn. In addition to the routes that are overwhelming, drivers need to learn 60,000 points of interest. SIXTY THOUSAND. You name it, it is on there–to hospitals from hotels to crematoriums.
We can all agree that this is a lot to take in. It is not something that you learn in the book and can sit at home. Explore on your own and you have got to get out in the streets muscle memory style. Drivers usually push their routes each and every day, and it is not unusual to observe trainees–called Knowledge boys and girls–learning through scooter with the day’s lesson clipped to their handlebars–believed to provide a better visual of the road and its environment.
Boys and girls are given to train. It’s not something that you can crank out in a weekend. The driver Adam talked with said it ends up being a lot of”nursery rhymes” you learn as you go.
The fun does not stop with singing”Ring Around the Piccadilly.” There a test that is written. Drivers are quizzed on the landmarks together as well as the runs. The stage is called appearances When the test is defeated.
Appearances are intimidating, to say the least. The driver of adam gave a description of how it goes: You sit with an examiner. He explained it like”being in front of the headmaster when you know you are in trouble,” as what’s being judged here–not just what you have spent two decades memorizing, but also your ways. When you”plonk down your buttocks,” as he so well put it, the examiner will call-out a beginning and endpoint. An individual mentions the straightest and shortest path in parrot-fashion and has to name where these points are on the road. If I got the run Manor House Station from memory I would have to answer, into Gibson Square:
“Leave the left Greens Lane, right into Brownswood Road, left into Blackstock Road, forward Highbury Park, forward Highbury Grove. Into St Pauls Road, comply at Highbury Corner, depart by Upper Street, right into Barnsbury Street, left into Milner Square, ahead into Milner Place and Gibson Square is facing.”
You begin 56 days 15, performing them and do this four times every look. Pass those and it drops to 28. You need to begin that set of looks all over if you do not pass. It is a repeat of the UK driving test and what should be an evaluation on the 25 routes after appearances are passed.
So there you have it, we are now a portion of the way to getting a London Cab Driver. Do you think you would have the ability to attack the Knowledge, or is it the test in the world? Tell us in the comments below.
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