Have you ever wondered where your profession came from? Do you know exactly how it came about and how you ended up spending endless hours behind a wheel?
Of course, your profession is none other than that of a professional taxi driver, commonly known as a taxi driver. You are the classic Greek taxi driver of our hearts and of course as the so-called know-it-all you have a wide range of knowledge, but also possibilities. Perhaps, you are not limited only to the above advantages, but you have been faced many times with difficult situations, in which you managed to cope with success, as you consider it your obligation and the duty of your profession. Therefore, you might rightfully belong to those superheroes who don’t need to wear masks and special suits to have superpowers.
You first know all the secrets of the profession, in order to inform someone who is interested in working in the specific industry. You know, for example, the operating costs of the taxi, what turnover a taxi makes, the profit from renting it and the income that is generated approximately per month and everything related to taxation. However, it would not be possible for your knowledge to be limited to your own profession. As mentioned above, you have the ability to position yourself with arguments, as well as with a particularly pretentious speech on any topic of discussion. Even if you are a new, more modern driver, or if the nature of your character is to be more measured and introverted, we have to admit our weakness to the classic taxi driver. For us, it will forever remain a controversial love-hate relationship at the same time, as there will be moments of weakness and disagreement.
Perhaps all of the above, if you are a driver, you may consider them too much. You might think it’s a myth that professional drivers have a wealth of knowledge. But the above opinion rightly can be considered partially true, as it arises from the difficult daily life of drivers, who may spend endless hours chatting with people belonging to any social class and then themselves share their conversations with colleagues. In addition, as many drivers claim, their main companionship is none other than that of the radio permanently on, listening mainly to informational broadcasts.
But although we got lucky with our last radio call and the taxi driver was such a complex personality, he turned out to have a basic lack of knowledge about his own profession. On our short journey, none of us remembers how the conversation ended up in the history of the profession. Perhaps a brief report from the radio, which piqued our interest. However, he admitted that he was unable to impart his wisdom to us, as he had never asked himself. Out of curiosity, we wanted to know details about the history of the taxi and how the specific profession began. Therefore, we started a search process on the internet, in order to gather the necessary information, about the history of the profession, when the first taxis started to circulate abroad but also in Greece, about their color, but also about how its name came about cab.
The country in which the first taxis appeared is England, specifically London. In 1605, the first taxi, or rather a vehicle that referred to a taxi in terms of its operation, started, as visually the difference was particularly evident with modern cars. At first glance, it had nothing to do with and in no way resembled this type of vehicle that we know today. The particular vehicle was the well-known carriage, which was pulled by one horse, or in some cases two, and carried the customers who used it to their desired destination. Few were initially able to afford to travel with such carriages, as it was a luxurious means of transport, quite expensive for the time. Therefore, in their beginning they were a privilege of the rich exclusively.
After some years, a collaboration began with certain inns, which were able to rent the specific carriages, and specifically in 1636, the first taxi rank was created in the center of London. Then the whole process can be assumed that it started to resemble more the profession as we know it nowadays. The next evolution of the taxi concerned the complete change of vehicle, as in 1897 in Stuttgart, Germany, the first diesel-powered taxi appeared, which was called <>, a name derived from the man who created it, Gottlieb Daimler. Then, they continued to appear in other cities, such as in 1899 in Paris, in 1903 in London, in 1907 in New York and in the following years in several cities of the world.
Harry Allen, who was the owner of a taxi company, was the first who wanted to stand out with the color of his taxis, turning all his taxis into yellow. Nowadays, the color of taxis varies from city to city. For example, taxis in New York are yellow, except for some areas where they are also green, such as Staten Island, in Hong Kong they are red, blue or green depending on which area they work in, in London they are black, in Singapore they are yellow and blue, while Bangkok is the only city in the whole world where taxis impress with their colors, as they can be any color. In the city of Puebla, an original taxi service was created, the pink taxis, which serve exclusively women, something that also happens in London. This service was launched in order to prevent attacks on women. As for the cities of Greece, some examples are as follows: in Athens and Alexandroupolis their color is yellow, in Thessaloniki and Rhodes it is dark blue with white, in Patras, Komotini and Edessa it is crimson-red, in Karditsa , Volos and Trikala are grey, as in several provincial towns. Specifically, in the capital of Greece, in 1981, all taxis began to be painted from gray to yellow, and this process was completed in 1983, creating the well-known phrase that called them the “yellow race”.
Taxis in many major cities were not randomly painted yellow. The reason they adopted the yellow color is to be more easily seen by customers, who wish to be served, but above all by all drivers to avoid accidents. In fact, a study was carried out in Singapore, according to which the color yellow distracts attention more easily and is the most suitable for someone to react in order to avoid an accident. Although this official research was conducted on the streets of Singapore, in this city there are, as mentioned above, two colors of taxis, yellow and blue.
In Greece, the first taxi officially started its operation in 1902. Previously, the same job was done by private cars, which transported well-to-do citizens. Taxis in the early years operated with a crank, i.e. with a manual lever, which made it quite difficult for the driver in the event of a breakdown. From 1930 onwards, some without a crank began to appear, while from 1980 limousines also began to appear. The taximeter was originally located outside the car, above the wheel on the driver’s side. But then it was placed on the dashboard inside the vehicle. Then, the analog taximeters were converted to digital ones, which have a more accurate way of measuring. Initially there was no regulation on the color of the vehicle, but neither was there a sign somewhere with the word<> written on it. The only way to identify it was a taxi meter sign that read the word “free”. The first time the Greek government established rules for taxis was in 1964, according to which, each owner could only hold two licenses and no more, as happened in many cases of owners, who were forced to sell the extra licenses they had possessed. In 1978, a law was also enacted for radio taxis, as they had increased greatly in the 1970s.
As for the name, the word taxi comes from the word <>, the well-known taximeter, which all taxis have and was invented by the German Wilhelm Bruhn in 1891. More precisely, the word comes from the Latin < >, which means charge, tax, derived from the verb <>. It is interesting to note that this Latin verb <>, which means to tax, comes from the Greek verb <>. Therefore, the profession of taxi driver has etymologically Greek roots.
A special name for a taxi driver in Greece is the word <>, a word that could belong to dialect slang. It is sometimes used in a pejorative way by some to denote a predetermined value in many professions, not just the professional taxi driver. One could argue that the way we use it is wrong, as this particular word has a specific etymology, but why not tell this short interesting story. The etymology derives from the Latin word <>, which means fixed price. In turn it came from the Arabic <> and the verb <>, which means to inform. Therefore, the so-called tariff essentially refers to the way of charging a route.
