Before They Can Drive a Taxi, London's Cabbies Have To Commit the City To Memory in a Rigorous Test Called the Knowledge (cnet.com) 295
In their fight against Uber, London's taxi drivers claim a distinct advantage: They must forgo GPS and navigate the huge city entirely from memory. CNET: Put in place in 1865, the Knowledge exam requires cabbies to navigate between any two points in central London without following a map or GPS. It can take four years to learn the information and pass a series of stringent oral tests. It's a grueling process unmatched by any training taxi drivers have to face anywhere else, and it's the most arduous thing Pearson's [Editor's note: a driver; used as anecdote in the story] ever done. "My uncle was a cab driver and he encouraged me to give it a go," he said. "But I still didn't realize how hard it would be."
Despite the difficulty of mastering it, cabbies proudly defend the Knowledge as a critical part of their job, something technology can't replace. They say it sets them apart from ride-hailing services like Uber, whose drivers don't have to learn the Knowledge, and they believe it allows them to deliver a superior level of service. But ever since mapping apps arrived on phones and GPS-wielding Uber drivers exploded into London in 2012, the Knowledge has faced a volatile future. Should cabbies have to spend years of their life memorizing every inch of London when they can simply punch in a destination on a screen and be guided? Absolutely, say the drivers I spoke with.
Despite the difficulty of mastering it, cabbies proudly defend the Knowledge as a critical part of their job, something technology can't replace. They say it sets them apart from ride-hailing services like Uber, whose drivers don't have to learn the Knowledge, and they believe it allows them to deliver a superior level of service. But ever since mapping apps arrived on phones and GPS-wielding Uber drivers exploded into London in 2012, the Knowledge has faced a volatile future. Should cabbies have to spend years of their life memorizing every inch of London when they can simply punch in a destination on a screen and be guided? Absolutely, say the drivers I spoke with.
how do we know this knowledge.... (Score:4, Interesting)
only useful for helping a customer? it would never be used to stretch a ride out to bump up the fare a bit, no?
just having the knowledge guarantees nothing.... a tool can cut both ways
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Re:how do we know this knowledge.... (Score:4, Informative)
Taxi drivers are regulated in London, they invest a great deal of time and money in gaining The Knowledge so they can do the job, and part of that is being required to identify efficient routes. If an inspector takes a ride and the cabbie tries what you're suggesting then their career is in real danger. There aren't many people that stupid in the industry.
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But wouldn't it make more sense for the cab driver to use a computer to find the best route? The computer can know much more about the current traffic conditions and provide a much better route. The cab driver has to be smart enough to know when the computer is making a really bad error, but for the most part, the computer will probably come up with a really good result. You might end up with cab drivers who are better at being drivers or who are more courteous to the public rather than picking only people
Re:how do we know this knowledge.... (Score:4, Insightful)
But wouldn't it make more sense for the cab driver to use a computer to find the best route?
If a computer existed that was any good at doing that, then yes. But right now, they aren't even close. You are placing way too much faith in their ability to know current traffic conditions and adapt optimally to them.
This is a theory-vs-practice issue. In theory, all of these objections could be resolved. There's no inherent technical limitation that says you couldn't do the sort of thing I assume you're imagining here. But in practice, most in-car navigation systems are pretty awful in a city like London. In many cases, even if you don't know the back roads and detours, you really are better off just planning a sensible route in advance and sticking to it unless something obviously catastrophic has happened. And if you do know the roads the way a London cabbie does, you can adapt on the fly way better than any current navigation systems anyway.
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You don't know London, I get it. You don't care about the traffic conditions right now. You care about the traffic conditions in 5 minutes. And believe me, there can be a HUGE difference between those two things.
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You don't know London, I get it. You don't care about the traffic conditions right now. You care about the traffic conditions in 5 minutes. And believe me, there can be a HUGE difference between those two things.
The computer should be better at that than a human, too.
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It shouldn't be up to the entrenched interests and the politicians who support them to make this decision for you.
Why shouldn't it be up to politicians? Uber has a profit incentive, not a London-should-work-well incentive.
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Or bettter yet, used to track marketing data. Then sold. How many people would you like to know you like strip clubs, retail MJ, or take a lot of trips to the liquor store? It could have job and insurance implication.
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Many a fare knows the way as well as the cabbie. Trying to stretch a ride will get you some outrage.
Now, lots of fares at Heathrow can be duped. That is why many cities legislate airport rides and regulate fees.
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Driving with a GPS is dangerous (Score:4, Insightful)
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Anyone who's tried to navigate central London using a SatNav's audible instructions knows all too well that the instructions are frequently too early, too late, or just plain confused by unusual road layouts, resulting in ambiguous or misleading spoken instructions. I have reached a point on several occasions where I have completely turned off a navigation system in London because it was not only unhelpful but actively dangerous.
I am now firmly of the view that any in-car navigation devices with sound shoul
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Autonomous solutions will make these arguments look as outdated as an engineer arguing a sliderule over a calculator.
Eventually, yes, but despite the hype, we are clearly still a long way from that level of technology today.
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Autonomous Vehicles (Score:2)
Autonomous vehicles will have no problem passing the Knowledge.
This problem will solve itself within a decade.
Firefighters do too (Score:2)
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There's actually detectable changes in the brain [scientificamerican.com] of cabbies who've trained for The Knowledge.
Personal Experience (Score:5, Insightful)
I was in London last year, and used Uber extensively. Most of the time it worked out fine, but there were a few spectacular failures. In particular, a ride to Kensington Palace dropped us off at a point that was more than a half hour's walk from the Palace. As we walked, we passed an intersection that was only a few hundred yards from the Palace entrance. I'm pretty sure a real cab driver would have dropped us at the closest point.
Re:Personal Experience (Score:4, Insightful)
I was in London last year, and used Uber extensively.
You'd probably be better off using citymapper or some equivalent to be honest and doing a mix of walking and public transport.
It's what us locals do innit.
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The time my GPS unit asked me to take a left turn off a bridge reminded me that we still need to pay attention.
Sure, I'd say the same (Score:5, Insightful)
If it were my livelyhood and I already put in the effort, I'd see that as an excellent way to keep out competitors. But you'd be batshit insane to actually _want_ to learn all that crap if you were just starting out, considering how much the city has grown since 1865, and how easy GPS (possibly with live updates on road conditions) makes things nowadays...
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... you'd be batshit insane to actually _want_ to learn all that crap if you were just starting out, considering how much the city has grown since 1865
Eventually it will be impossible. Look at Shanghai, it's 3 times the size of London by population and 4 times the area, with constant construction that makes whatever you learned a year ago completely obsolete. If your Shanghai cabbie doesn't have a GPS, get ready to give them turn-by-turn directions.
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Believe it or not, it sharpens you up! (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a documentary about this on TV, not sure what channel, but I saw it just a few days ago, about how the size of the actually grew on those learning to sharpen their memory like this. Scans where taken before and after, and the results where quite astonishing.
I kinda believe it too, I got a job at a huge corporation, where I was set to do an almost seemingly impossible task - namely learn 25K pages of information about their infrastructure so I could properly map and redirect requests to where it was needed + solve IT solution tasks on the spot if possible instead of redirecting, the answer where all in these 25K pages. At first it was like, I'm never ever gonna be able to do this, after a month I was - I can't believe I can actually remember this much, now I actually believe it can be done, I still have to console the 25K pages manual - but it's rarer and rarer, and my problem solving rate is up to 96% correct now.
What's even more interesting, is that this job has had a profound effect on my private life as well. I've done much more to clean up my life, making sure important things like personal pension, insurance, savings, purchases are done correctly instead of wasting it on "oh, I don't care". My gaming life is amazing in comparison to before, I've reached levels I couldn't even dream of later.
So there's something to this!
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...I really need that 1 minute edit button in here.
Insert "Hippocampus" between the and actually (about how the size of the hippocampus actually grew....)
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Looks to me like you are referring to this documentary on National Geographic [nationalgeographic.com]
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Could be, your link wasn't available in my country, but the title and description seemed right. And it was probably licensed to one of our national / public channels.
Black cabs all the way (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who's ever used a London cabby will value the brevity of the journey when you ask for a recommended hotel near a certain landmark/street, or if you're in a rush to get to a meeting in an obscure area and there's a traffic jam on the normal route. It's shocking how little local knowledge can be required elsewhere.
This is not news. (Score:3)
This has been the case since 1865.
"How to you get from here to Heathrow?" (Score:2)
Driver: Well, first you take a right on...
Sherlock: Wrong, next.
monopoly (Score:2)
I would say, let customers decide whether this knowledge is worth it by giving them the choice. Otherwise, it's a barrier to entry to a restricted group of drivers so that they enjoy a monopoly and the power to price their taxi services a
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Well, in this case the depth of knowledge is not a safety issue, as it might be in someone's fireman example above.
That's debatable. Bad instructions from a navigation system can be horribly distracting, and you get plenty of bad instructions from every nav system I've ever tried while driving in London.
Otherwise, it's a barrier to entry to a restricted group of drivers so that they enjoy a monopoly and the power to price their taxi services accordingly.
Taxi fares in London are on a meter and regulated by law.
To quote The Simpsons (Score:2)
Teacher: Are you telling me you memorized that fact when anyone with a cell phone can find it out in 30 seconds?
Martin Prince: I-I I've crammed my head full of garbage!
Teacher: Yes, you have.
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Looking up all facts on the Internet has never backfired! No misinformation out there.
Applicant filter (Score:2)
And privacy? (Score:3)
Do you want the whole world to know your spending habits? Who you associate with? Etc. If you use Uber/Lyft etc. and the surveillance state will love you.
Scenario: you stop off at a restaurant to pick up some take out. 15 minutes after you leave a bomb goes off. Of course if you did nothing wrong you have nothing wrong to worry about. Right?
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Human GPS (Score:2)
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Bollocks ... (Score:2)
It's a grueling process unmatched by any training taxi drivers have to face anywhere else, ...
It id the same in every european city I know about
OTOH London is particular big.
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Yes (Score:2)
"cabbies proudly defend the Knowledge" (Score:2)
Hams clinging to code? Cheating cabdrivers? (Score:2)
The Knowledge was obviously a great idea in the London of 1865, when the only way to be a cabdriving professional wa to know every inch of the city. It's also great for screwing the passenger in more or less subtle ways. Given an intimate knowledge of city streets, you "take the passenger for a ride" without making even a long-term resident aware that this is what you're doing.
The psychology behind The Knowledge is exactly what kept Morse code in use as a hazing mechanism in ham radio for years after it had
Re: Hams clinging to code? Cheating cabdrivers? (Score:3)
Uberâ(TM)s app *routinely* picks long and slow routes in London. I frequently have to redirect the driver based on my own knowledge or Waze. And of course thereâ(TM)s absolutely zero transparency about fare calculations â" I have to trust that the fare was calculated the way it was promised to be calculated. Meters in black cabs are regulated by a third party, by contrast.
Funny thing is (Score:2)
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Color me skeptical (Score:2)
Superior? (Score:2)
they believe it allows them to deliver a superior level of service.
Well what is the problem then? The market will reward them if this is a level of service customers value.
The wonders of a GPS1 (Score:3)
Yeah, like the time a few years ago when a GPS had my agent lead us an extra 30 mi or so on the DC Beltway by going the *wrong* direction.
Or the times that it, or Google maps, *always* wants to get you onto an Interstate, rather than using the through streets that the natives know.
And some idiot thinks that a London cabbie doesn't know if a bridge is out? Better than the GOP? Or why they should, or should not, go down that street?
Real World knowledge trumps what you're told by someone who wasn't there.
Stupid government regulation fail (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd have to be delusional to think this is an advantage. A human navigator can't see ahead for optimizing against current traffic patterns as can GPS. Plus, imagine all the other things they could have done with their time and effort besides memorizing obsolete information. No wonder this stupid crony industry is going bankrupt.
Re:Stupid government regulation fail (Score:5, Interesting)
"A human navigator can't see ahead for optimizing against current traffic patterns as can GPS"
Really now? Anyone I have ever met knows things like, "If I don't leave in 15 minutes the 340 is going to be crowded, but I could take the 225. The 225 is longer but would end up being faster". And " since it is the holidays and there is a game that lets out soon, I'll take the 720, use high street, go through Clear Water subdivision, get on the 225 and miss the surge".
If a person is familiar with an ares, human usually wins.
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I know that after 3pm every 5 minutes I delay is another minute spent in traffic on the 101 Pima. After 4, it's a minute delay for every minute I waste getting out of work.
What I cannot know without real-time traffic data is that an accident has blocked it anywhere between Cactus and Thomas, or between the 202 and the 60. Those become huge delays. The radio traffic reports on the 10s give me stale info, usually only reporting a half hour after the accident is reported, and for two hours after it is cleared.
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I've had 3 experiences with GPS. On 2 occasions, I was trying to find a place I was semi-familiar with, didn't like the route it said, and the route I took turned out to be shorter. The 3rd time was with a friend trying to find somewhere he hadn't been in years. The GPS glitched several times, sending him down several wrong streets before he finally followed his gut and found the place.
Humans 3, GPS 0!
Re:Stupid government regulation fail (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had 3 experiences with GPS.
I have had more than 3 experiences with GPS so far TODAY. If you have really only used it 3 times in your life, you shouldn't be commenting on it.
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It may come as news to you, mate, but London is not in Seattle. There is no law against balack cab drivers having a GPS, or even two or three. But they need to be able to find every single one of a vast number of landmarks, and the quickest way between them, when the GPS is not working (I have had it claim I was doing 700 MPH over Marylebone, while I would be happy to even to 7MPH).
The black cab is a premium service with quality control and
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I use my GPS all the time. Most of the time it just works, so much so that in the odd times it doesn't work, I'm shocked.
However, there was this one time I was on the Freeway when the GPS told me to get off the freeway and take a side street, where I normally would just stay on the road. However, I took the advice, and it routed me around a brand new accident, using side streets. The detour took less than 4 minutes, and routed me around stopped traffic.
I'm not even sure how it figured the route around the a
Re: Stupid government regulation fail (Score:2)
That sort of thing, predicting that a highway gets crowded at a certain time and choosing a different route is exactly the thing deep learning is good at.
If computers cant anticipate situations they would have failed in games like Chess and Go.
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"If a person is familiar with an ares, human usually wins."
No. My navigator knows _all_ that, it knows all the distance differences up to an inch and doesn't have to guess and also all the accidents that just happened all over the city, all the planned and unplanned works happening just now, the buildings on fire blocking traffic and, thanks to Google, at what speed all the cars on the road are driving _right_ _now_.
Your poor man's version of Cosmo Kramer just can't compete.
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Psychic powers are not required you may not know about accidents and traffic issues without your gps but cabbies have a dispatch and scanners that can give them that info.
GPS works until it doesn't having something to fall back on isn't a bad idea.
Re: Stupid government regulation fail (Score:2, Informative)
The Knowledge is only required for black cabs, they do not have a dispatcher.
If you have a dispatcher then you're a minicab and the dispatch office will have considered the route and set the price before the driver even knows about the job. They aren't allowed to pick up passengers off the street.
This is a UK-centric article, and our taxis are licensed differently to yours in the US.
Re:Stupid government regulation fail (Score:5, Insightful)
When was the last time you got in a cab and the driver checked his entire route with the dispatcher to make sure there were no accidents?
When was the last time you were in a real black cab?
They get messages like "Lorry accident on Hampstead north of Drummond, south blocked, north slow".
GPS+phone systems are much slower to react, because they rely on the few cars that send bidirectional data, or officials to phone in when they close a road, which can take hours.
And GPS itself doesn't work well in big cities anyhow, due to tall buildings obstructing satellites.
I'd take a knowledgable driver at twice the price any day.
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Re:Stupid government regulation fail (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd have to be delusional to think this is an advantage.
And yet, I've seen many reports/documentaries/reviews over the years that have objectively compared SatNavs with London cabbies, and the cabbies always win, sometimes by a comically wide margin.
Having tried to navigate central London using a top-of-the-range SatNav, including all the whizzy new real-time this and traffic report that, this result does not surprise me in the slightest. The route-planning algorithms aren't even close to the same standard as a proper London cabbie, and their real-time feeds are neither accurate enough nor fast enough to know when to stick with the main route and when to divert along the back streets.
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Generally the routing algorithms suffer the most when the routes have to take curved roads, have multiple speed changes, and are limited by bridges and other obstructions. Rectilinear road layouts are very forgiving.
So London, San Diego, and Boston are routing nightmares, New York less so, and Phoenix pretty simple. LA in the middle. Kuala Lumpur is unforgivable.
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It's also a case of knowing the nature of the road.
As an obvious example, I'd estimate that my current SatNav shows an incorrect speed limit on at least 20% of roads I travel on (percentage by distance) in cities. This frequently leads to directions that I know in my own city are terrible, and I can only assume from the odd routes it often suggests in other cities that it's not doing any better there.
Even on long-distance main roads, a SatNav might not understand that the reason traffic is slowing is becaus
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Those cabbies have scanners, radios, and a dispatcher I wouldn't be surprised if they know about some accidents before emergency services. One sees the accident and radios it in and they all know to re-route accordingly, same with traffic. It's not like they are alone and have no information they just know the streets and businesses and don't need to use GPS.
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Also true, though in the cases I've seen, the cabbies mostly won by a clear margin even without that benefit.
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Seems like a(n illegally) good business model would be to slap some GPS trackers on the black cabs and use that data to feed the GPS algorithms.
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And yet, I've seen many reports/documentaries/reviews over the years that have objectively compared SatNavs with London cabbies, and the cabbies always win,
Citation please.
A quick Google search pulls up some anecdotes, but zero "reports" and no "documentaries".
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I don't know what you were searching for, but several searches I tried using terms like London, black cab and satnav turned up several of the older ones immediately. There was another one on TV much more recently that had the same outcome, but I'm afraid I can't remember which programme it was so it's hard to find that one.
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Having tried to navigate central London using a top-of-the-range SatNav, including all the whizzy new real-time this and traffic report that, this result does not surprise me in the slightest. The route-planning algorithms aren't even close to the same standard as a proper London cabbie, and their real-time feeds are neither accurate enough nor fast enough to know when to stick with the main route and when to divert along the back streets.
Have you tried Waze?
The truth is that V2V is coming, and the automakers are actually building alliances that will let them share the V2V data, so Waze is going away (whether they know it or not) and that functionality is going to be offered by every vehicle's navigation system. Even vehicles without autonomy are going to carry V2V systems (Cadillac has started deploying them already, largely as a gimmick, but even so) and the available information on traffic conditions is going to be staggering. It will be
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The reason I ask if you've tried Waze, though, is that responding to traffic conditions in realtime is its whole job.
The data Waze uses comes from drivers. There is a certain irony in the situation where a driver who has just been entering the location of a traffic stop is then stopped by the same officer and ticketed for using a mobile electronic device while driving, which is quite possible in states with new, draconian distracted driving laws.
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The route algorithms mostly obey speed laws and avoid neighborhoods and roads that aren't really meant for thru-traffic.
If everyone were to use and obey them, I'd bet the traffic congestion would be reduced and everyone would get places faster. Lots of people taking creative routes trying to get there just a little faster increases the friction in the system and slows the overall system down.
Instead of having them memorize maps, they should ban creative routing altogether and make them stick to planned rout
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The route algorithms mostly obey speed laws and avoid neighborhoods and roads that aren't really meant for thru-traffic.
Algorithms don't obey speed laws. They may base their routing on them. There are increasing numbers of stories about neighborhoods that are being inundated by rush-hour traffic being routed off the throughways and through their residential areas because the routing algorithm sees that as a faster path.
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And yet, I've seen many reports/documentaries/reviews over the years that have objectively compared SatNavs with London cabbies, and the cabbies always win, sometimes by a comically wide margin.
And yet, that's not how real people use cabbies. Many of us need to be taken across Central London, not just within Central London (which is the only knowledge they're actually tested on).
This is not that I begrudge London cabbies for being more knowledgeable in general and for having lower turnover. I think that's great! But I also think they should drop the attitude and carry an internet capable phone with Google Waze or Google Maps on it. After all, their A-to-Z guide can only take them so far. That guid
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We've tried using Google Maps on my wife's phone while I'm driving, plenty of times. It's just as bad in inner cities as the built-in things or the standalone satnavs like TomTom.
Also, why do so many people apparently believe London cabbies somehow can't use all the same technologies as everyone else, in addition to their expert knowledge of the central area? It's not as if they're mutually exclusive.
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Not a failure in regulation, Just regulations that are being replaced by technology.
Being that GPS is used the the UK, using US infrastructure, while we have had good relations for about 200 years. It wouldn't make sense to put your infrastructure purely in the hands of a foreign power, no matter how friendly they are.
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Being that GPS is used the the UK, using US infrastructure,
Glosnass, comrade. Much better. Is taking you same place, half the rubles, and you get a shot of vodka to go with it.
As they say, in Russia, Glosnass uses you!
Benefits beyond navigation (Score:2)
You'd have to be delusional to think this is an advantage.
Not at all. I would much rather be driven by someone who is proud of the job they do, who is committed enough that they are willing to spend the time to understand the layout of a large complex city and who also has the mental capacity to do so. The benefit of this test is not purely restricted to navigational know-how.
Engineers don't count? (Score:2)
Do you not think that we don't bust our asses to create the best product we can for you? Millions of man-hours from people killing themselves with long hours have already gone into creating the self-driving systems that show promise for dramatically reducing traffic fatalities in another couple of decades and enabling many new industries. Millions more will be spent before the job is done.
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"You'd have to be delusional to think this is an advantage"
You'd have to be delusional not to think this is an advantage.
Driving by GPS is fine for areas you don't know. But you drive a LOT more intelligently and safer in areas you DO KNOW.
You know complicated left/right/left maneuvers and which lane to be in at each step, often in cases faster than the GPS has time to update the display after your last manueover and recite the instructions for the next one.
"Take the 3rd exit from the round about which is i
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The drives can use GPS, they just have to pass the test without it.
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I've done a fair amount of field work. GPS has always failed my when I needed it the most. Either non-existent routes, or unable to calibrate due too poor hits from satellites. Any place where the signal is blocked. This is why I always have a map back up and when in the field a compass as well.
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Your average Yellow cab driver never looks clean or particularly healthy.
Neither do neckbeard programmers, yet we're supposed to entrust our lives and finances to them writing software.
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They're also surprisingly manoeuvrable, able to take passengers in wheelchairs, spacious enough for significant amounts of luggage, etc.
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It's an advantage if you're looking to lose your job to new technology.
However, using "The Knowledge" (eh) in combination with a smartphone should make them better than Uber drivers.
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And a GPS app has no way to give you directions to a description (not an address) of the location.
Nonsense. It's called Google. They certainly aren't exposing all of the metadata they've created to the public. If they don't already know which buildings are which color and what's across the street from them, it's mostly a matter of burning processor time since they have all the data they need to find that out in their databases already. Maybe you can't search for buildings that way with google yet, but it's only a matter of time. And of course, if someone has blogged about such and such being across the
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Because it's anachronistic? Maybe they should be tested on driving teams of horses too.
That way only a few guys could qualify and cab fares can be bid up so only the very rich can afford to use a cab.
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Not quite, because the summary didn't have this "black cab drivers" trick for those unfamiliar with London, causing a brief impression that something racist was going on. He added some brilliant confusion. It was master-quality misdirection and the least we could do is applaud.