Funny story....
A lady friend of my mothers had driven on her own all the way to Teulada (Spain) and was not too good health wise and wanted her car back home obviously after her stay, so I drove her home to London, she just couldn't face it, stressed as chuff!
Got her home safe, no map or sat nav required either, west Londons a busy place.
Her nephew was a black cabby driver and drove me to Bolton the next day for free! To see family and get a flight back, treated him to a chippy meal, couldn't believe how cheap it was and he got gravy!
The funny thing is the neighbors noticing it was a London registered cab and the odd driver too on the way, so I felt like an MP for a while.
As to the English tests, IDK, it would help generally as to integration and work etc but I've never had a problem in the northwest and every foreign cab driver I've have used has been polite and spoken clearly enough to be understood, in the area I live in.
The thing is, how much is the test going to cost? You have to do a course to be a bouncer, security guard, commercial driver, work at a hospital etc doing shit you've been doing all your working life and been trained for in the first place!
These costs and licenses are a hidden tax on a lot of poorly paid workers on minimum wage, at the interview stage it should be apparent to the interviewer and the person told to improve his language skills before employment.
I just think It's all got a bit silly when you did your apprenticeship you learned as much or more from your older colleagues and workmates as you did at college IMO, 33 years claim free and I have to do a CPC test to drive, I have to pay for it too. Sucks!
With the monitoring tech etc they have in the cabs today IDK why this happened, shouldn't have, the taxi co I did some malware removal for had frequent contact with the drivers and knew where they were, even end of shift and mandatory break times etc!
Never fall asleep in a cab or on public transport, waking up where you got on is a real p***er, only going from Rüsselsheim to Wiesbaden and went a long, long way off, they let me off for the return fair, though, which was nice of them.
I could go on forever, but no.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
