This was the heart-stopping moment a hapless passenger nearly got run over by a bus in central London yesterday.

The footage, which was caught on a cabbie's dash cam, shows the man getting out of the taxi near Newgate Street and running into the next lane without looking. 

He is then hit in the shoulder by an oncoming bus which fortunately slows down enough not to hurt him or knock him off his feet.   

The startled man then jumps backwards away from the bus, which comes to a stop.

He then waves his arm in an apparent apology before continuing to the other side of the road.   

The person who filmed the near miss, also a taxi driver, said: 'I was empty at the time, my jaw dropped, I looked at the bus driver who was clearly in a bit of a shock himself.'

The cabbie, who has been driving part-time for six years, explained he does not see similar incidents very often. 

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7037723/Foolish-taxi-passenger-runs-path-London-bus-saved-drivers-quick-reactions.html

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German air taxi startup Lilium has announced the first test flight of its full-scale, all-electric five-seater air taxi.

The company, which has built the jet-powered flying car, flew an unmanned test flight of its vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) system earlier this month.

It was the latest in a series of successful tests from various companies in the electric flight industry indicating that we could be seeing flying cars in the skies soon. 

The jet has 36 engines which allow it to take off vertically, and has a maximum top speed of 80mph (300 kmph) and a range of 80 miles.

According to the tech firm, its flying taxi would allow users to travel from London to Manchester in less than an hour.

The Lilium jet, which can operate with a pilot or in drone mode, is a relatively simple design - with no tail, no rudder, no propellers and no gearbox.

This has allowed the design team to focus on more passenger-friendly features, including panoramic windows and gull-wing doors. 

They hope to have a fleet of the systems flying in cities worldwide by 2025, providing a flying taxi service, similar to Uber.

Passengers would book a taxi from a local landing strip or purpose-built landing pad, to fly them on short haul trips, according to the firm.

In a video provided by the company, Lilium's unpiloted aircraft can be seen taking off vertically like a helicopter, hovering briefly, and then landing. 

Although it may seem liek a small step, the successful flight already pust them much farther than many of its competitors who are also building electric aircraft. 

'We have been working on this test for the last 20 months,' said Remo Gerber, chief commercial officer at Lilium. 

'Just on the take off and landing. What will come next is a test flight programme that will put it through its paces to get certified.' 

Mr Gerber would not provide any details about the jets weight capacity, but he insisted that it will eventually be able to carry five passengers and a pilot. 

Lilium's 'payload ratio is industry-leading, and that's what is going to make the difference,' he told the Verge. 

The firm claim to have built aircraft in under two years, having grown its team from just 30 people in 2017 to more than 300.

This follows an injection of $90m (£70m) from investing giants such as China's Tencent and venture capital firm Atomico. 

Other companies are also looking to launch their own flying taxi service.

Uber has promised it will launch a fleet of air taxis in a pilot project in Dallas and Los Angeles by 2023 and Boeing is also building its own electric flying taxi aircraft. 

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7037069/Flying-taxi-carry-five-passengers-destination-186mph-tested-Germany.html

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BRITISH tourists are being warned about a taxi scam near the busy Gare du Nord train station where rogue taxi drivers are charging extortionate amounts of money for a short journey.

One Brit tourist revealed that a driver tried to charge her €62 (£55) for a journey that's less than two miles.

Maree, from the UK, decided to get a taxi from the station for the short journey as she was travelling with her elderly parents and they were carrying heavy luggages.

She told The Local France that she saw the meter said €62 (£55) as soon as they got into the taxi.

Maree asked the driver about the cost, only to be told it was a "fixed price" for train station pick ups.

Taxi drivers in Paris can only charge a flat rate when travelling from the airport - €50 for the right bank and €55 for the left bank.

The fixed fee does not apply to the train station, where the Eurostar from the UK gets into.

After disputing the price, the taxi driver proceeded to drive them back to their pick up point, offload their luggage and drive off.

Maree explained how they then booked an Uber, which cost them less than €10 (£8.74) for the journey.

After Maree shared her experience, other tourists also shared their stories of horror taxi drivers in Paris on social media.

Twitter user Kim Willsher said: "Paris taxi driver asked to take my mum (aged 70+) to Eurostar/Gare du Nord, dropped her at Gare de Lyon insisting it was right place (it's opposite side of city). She was confused and paid. She missed her train."

However, she later admitted that a female taxi driver was kind enough to take her mother to the correct station, refusing to take payment until she insisted.

Ben McPartland said: "My mate was very drunk in Paris and flagged a taxi to take him to his hotel without realising he has outside his hotel.

"Taxi driver drove him round the block for 20 minutes and dropped him off in same place."

Gerry Feehily wrote: "But seriously my sis arrives at Gare du Nord last year with husband who's got mobility problems and driver, official taxi, turns off meter and announces 'there's a strike on' for which reason they must pay 70 euros to go to 6th arrondissement..."

Last year, a taxi driver tried to charge two tourists from Thailand €247 (£218) for a trip from the airport to the city centre.

He then threatened the couple with the police before accepting €200 (£174.77) before they left the taxi.

Following the scam, the local police launched an investigation to try and find the rogue driver - he was later found and jailed for eight months, according to the BBC.

Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/9086800/tourist-paris-taxi-scam-gare-du-nord/

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Uber is giving customers who use its premium Uber Black service the option to tell their drivers to be quiet with the push of a button.

The new “quiet mode” feature was announced Wednesday alongside other new app settings available only to Uber Black users, including the option to set a preferred temperature and to request help with luggage or extra time getting to the car.

As The Verge’s Andy Hawkins point outs, this option is only for the customers who are already paying about twice the price of Uber X and four times the price of Uber Pool. Uber Black is a luxury service that uses a fleet of fancier cars and, in some places, requires drivers to have a much higher minimum rating than other Uber drivers in order to stay in the higher-end, higher-paying program.

But it’s not unlikely that the feature will be rolled out to all Uber users in the future. In a July 2018 interview with The Verge, Taggart Matthiesen, head of product for autonomous driving for Lyft, Uber’s main rival, said his company was thinking about implementing a “Zen mode.” This would be basically the same thing as quiet mode and allow users to “personalize” rides by specifying that they personally don’t like to talk to strangers while they ride in cars.

You might think the typical social norms of conversation with a person providing a service would apply here, but the question of whether Uber drivers want you to talk to them and whether they might give you a lower passenger score if you don’t has long been a subject of debate.

In 2017, CityLab published a guide to “How to Talk to the Stranger Driving You Around Town.” A year later, the site published “Shut Up and Drive,” with the subheading “Would ride-hailing be better if the driver couldn’t talk?”

“No, I Don’t Walk to Talk to My Uber Driver,” announced a blogger for the college campus lifestyle site Odyssey Online. “At the end of the day, I want to keep my Uber ride what it is, a simple exchange of goods and services. I want the driver to do their job which is to drive me to my destination and I want to do my part which is to pay and be a good passenger.”

Self-described actress, model, and comedienne Bridget Fitzgerald made a whole YouTube video explaining “How to Tell Your Uber Driver You Don’t Want to Talk.” A quick search brings up tons of these open letters, including one titled “AN OPEN LETTER TO THE UBER DRIVERS WHO HAVE TOLD ME ABOUT JESUS.”

“Do Uber drivers care if their passengers talk or make conversation?” someone asked Quora in 2017, and several Uber drivers helpfully replied. “I let the rider decide if there is to be a conversation. I’m a pretty good judge of whether someone wants to talk or not,” one wrote. “I like talking to passengers and will engage on numerous topics if they want to talk. If they don’t that is fine too,” said another. Perhaps most helpful, a third replied “I prefer they shut up, but I won’t rate them accordingly. Some very few passengers are interesting. I like to talk to them.”

To be fair, some of the confusion is over the black box of the passenger rating — a lot of women suspect that not being chatty and friendly enough results in a lower rating for them than a man would get from a largely male roster of drivers, but that’s impossible to prove. (The second CityLab piece addresses this.) For the most part, though, it seems like Uber drivers are just people performing jobs and they’ll engage in conversation when it seems like the person in the car with them seems into it and has something interesting to say. Which is essentially the same parameters any person uses when deciding to engage another person in conversation in any setting.

If you really don’t want to talk to your Uber driver — which is okay, you don’t have to talk all the time — take a page out of my book and just lean your cheek against the window as soon as you get in the car. Stare wistfully out the window, and if it’s raining, trace the raindrops down the glass with your finger. They’ll be like, “This person is having a tumultuous emotional experience! I would rather not engage!” And then it’s fine. And you avoid the discomfort of pressing a button to tell a person sitting very near you to be quiet.

Source: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/5/15/18624906/uber-black-quiet-mode-luxury-feature-lyft-zen

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Police have launched an appeal after it was alleged that a taxi driver was racially abused in Plymouth.

Officers say they want to speak with the man pictured above following reports of a verbal assault.

The incident was reported to have taken place at around 3.15am on Monday, April 22, on Ivydale Road.

It was reported that a man had racially abused a taxi driver while in the vehicle.

The CCTV image was released to the public on Wednesday.

A Devon and Cornwall Police spokesperson said: "Police would like to speak to the man pictured as its thought he may have information vital to the investigation.

"Anyone who recognises the man, and anyone with information, is asked to contact police on 101 using crime reference number CR/036142/19."

Source: https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/police-want-speak-man-after-2872126

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