willc.me

Central London is a very different city in day and night. By day, hordes of shuffling, huddled, zombie-like commuters and office workers hurry around. By night they are replaced by loud and normally drunken people. And some clever soul in 1998 decided the best way to ferry them around the busy streets way by rickshaw, or as they call them pedicabs.

Pedicabs were sold to the London people as an emission free answer to drink driving and transport woes. And at first it seemed like a good idea. It was fun when you saw one go past with some admirably dressed theater goers tittering in the back. However, like all things that are “good” or more accurately profitable, they spread. And now they’ve spread and strangled the city like a disease.

For all the things they are good for, like being emission free (or trendy), they are far outweighed by negative points. It means that after 8 in the evening, every street you walk down has some foreign student hassling you for money and honking horns from their gaudy chariots. It’s made infinitely worse when they aren’t asking you for money, as it means that they invariably have some screaming northern chavs whooping in the back.

Their “driver’s code of conduct” obviously doesn’t bind them to the roads and you frequently find them on the pavement or on pedestrianised streets. Supporters point out that there has never been a serious collision involving a pedicab but this doesn’t take into account the daily incidences of people being clipped and not reporting it through anger, lack of care from the authorities or lack of licensing.

It’s not much better as a driver of any other vehicles sharing the road. Rickshaws go slow looking for customers and have zero acceleration. Add to the fact that there are hundreds of them it means that Friday and Saturday night traffic grinds to a halt.

As far as I see it this has to be a fad. The only noteworthy incident that was seized upon was the rape of a woman by one of the drivers. There is a general strained apathy towards the pedicab by Londoners but this will all change when the first one gets taken out by a big vehicle at speed.

For lets face it. If one of those were hit by a bus traveling at speed then passenger and driver alike is screwed. And then the press will damn then and the spineless politicians will bend to the media will and outlaw them. Please let it be soon.