"The Rules"

any brits here?

we had a show in HK back around 1995 called "The Rules" about the breaking-in period (or licensing course?) for freshman taxi drivers in some big city, Manchester, i think. supervisor/instructor kept waving around a book "The Rules", the bible for the profession. not sure they even WERE "rules" -- might have been a cutesy name for the book of MAPS covering the city. no matter.

i don't recall the show being anything special, but my inability to google it up is bugging me. anyone know it offhand? it could be from a few years earlier (80s even), since we usually got stuff late. OUTSIDE chance it came from somewhere else (RoI, NZ, Oz), but 90% of our stuff was standard UK hand-me-downs.

 

Cat,

The rules etc in London are called 'The Knowledge'. A few years ago there was a series on UK TV about some people trying to pass 'The Knowledge' and what they had to do. Most of them got a small motor scooter and hada map clipped to the handlebars and tried to follow specific routes from one place to another.
There were a couple of them that I was pleased failed the test. Every route they tried to follow, they got lost or ran into the back of a bus or some other mishap. :-D

dave

 

ooooh....now that you mention it, i think THAT was the name of the series, not "The Rules". i've been misgoogling all this time!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082624/

1979?! good god, we really WERE behind the curve in HK....

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#The_Knowledge

wow, you really have quite a system there! in the US there are only 3 requirements for a hack license:

1) speak little or no english
2) be disinclined to bathe
3) be able to calculate a route on the fly which takes you thru 3 neighbouring states

 

A lot of London taxi drivers are really bright,one of them is featured on a trivia show over here called egg heads for example.

 

that's really amazing. over here it wakes 2-4 months to get a PILOT'S license! :-D

due to the high number of robberies, muggings, MURDERS, etc., cab driver is not a particularly coveted job in the US. usually a first stop on the immigration train.

after 9/11, we had a lot of "sightings" of ObL driving a cab in NYC. i'm sure homeland security was thrilled to follow up on all of those....

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EDIT: i'm not sure we even HAVE exams, now that i think about it. a minor 10 question "rules of the road" type deal if anything.

basically, u pay the fee (coupla hundred bucks?) and "buy" a hack license.

 

They have an american show like that too

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/cash-cab/

if you get the answers wrong they drop you off wherever you are and make you call another cab. I find that funny.

 

cash cab is a brit show wenchie. with the exception of big brother (netherlands) and shark tank (japan), i think every other reality show we have is a UK knockoff.

speaking of which, our brethren to the NORTH seem to be taking the term "knockoff" a bit too seriously....

http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/19/cash.cab.kills.ew/index.html

 

Ah, well we have an american version then, as this is in NYC. But still, throwing them out of the cab for getting the answer wrong, I find hilarious.