Wow, no idea you could and still can make that much dosh driving a cab
Shot_Annual_4330 on
So they used to benefit from a market in which both supply and access was deliberately tightly restricted, but has now been blown apart by technology and exposed to general market forces?
Grumpy-Gaz on
We need a number once unavoidable car expenses are taken off. Otherwise it doesn’t sound overly bad. Barely 6 figures? So what, top 3% of earners? Much more info is needed, but his admission of how much some have made makes it very difficult to sympathise with them.
Alcalash on
Helps when they don’t declare most of it and don’t pay tax
5n0wgum on
Where I live taxi drive and drug dealer is pretty much the same thing.
rustyb42 on
Reckon my 60k a year job would have been paid an equivalent 200k in the 80 u/thetelegraph
Cultural_Tank_6947 on
Also they didn’t make £170k, that’s an upwards inflation adjusted number.
ouwni on
Back when they’d take unsuspecting tourists on what should be a 1 mile route over 4 miles cause they didn’t know any better
Cute_Ad_9730 on
Boo hoo. The job was full of opinionated assholes who would rip you off at the first opportunity. So sick of their‘rules don’t apply to us’ like they’re some kind of emergency service. Remember pulling in to take a phone call from the hospital where my dad had been admitted. Half empty taxi parking strip on a quiet morning. Fat twats descended on me like I was shitting sausage rolls.
mobjusticeCT on
We voted brexit to stick to these metropolitan elite types.
Medical-Zucchini-349 on
I work in a busy part of London with one of those flashing traffic signs (when cars can go IF there’s no one crossing) and I routinely see them actively threatening to hit pedestrians. They cause so much noise pollution, always extremely stressed and honking at everything. They actively accelerate if they see someone crossing the street near the end of crossing time. It seems like they would be happy to purposely cause an accident and injure someone if they’re crossing slowly or still on the street when the light turns green.
I honestly used to take them all the time because it’s convenient but this behaviour has absolutely put me off getting in one of those. I would not miss them one bit if they end up in museums and the drivers are forced to do an app instead where you can see their ratings and bad/reckless drivers get filtered out.
UuusernameWith4Us on
>Some people worked all the hours God sent and other people never went to work. That’s the deciding factor.
>My best year would have been in the late 1980s when I cleared £50,000 a year – in today’s money that’s about £170,000. Today, a black cab driver, who works six days a week, doesn’t take many holidays, will earn about £100,000 a year.
>One of the biggest issues in the industry at the moment is how many cab drivers are having to register for VAT because they earn over £85,000 a year.
>During a weekday, we are looking to gross £35 to £40 an hour. On weekends and at nights, I’d want to gross at least £50 an hour
>About 55pc of cabbies are owners and 45pc rent cabs. If you rent, you will probably pay about £350 a week. To buy a cab outright is about £70,000, so most people buy them on a Personal Contract Plan. That would probably cost you about £250 a week.
>The cabs are electric, so you have to charge them. If you have a home charger and you arrange a night tariff where after midnight you pay hardly anything for electricity, you can get away with charging it for a fiver. If you charge it on the street, you can pay anything up to £30.
£100k at £40 and hour is 2500 hours work. That’s 48 hours a week, every week, no illness, no holidays, no slacking off and browsing Reddit on the clock. Then expenses (at the low end): £13k for PCP on the car, £1.8k for the electric, hiring an accountant to do your tax return and claw back VAT on business expenses.
The money involved isn’t out of the ordinary for a skilled independent contractor working way over the average working week.
Desperate-Oven-139 on
Cabbies should be on about £60k after the car expenses come off, so barely six figures sounds quite reasonable.
Billoo77 on
Reddit when a train driver earning £100k a year strikes: 🥰
Reddit when a cab driver makes £100k a year with no employment benefits 😤
SecureVillage on
The amount of knowledge they had learn is really admirable. However, the knowledge has been replaced by reliable GPS. Technology has blown open the barriers to entry.
We should all keep an eye on the barriers to entry for our jobs and, when they start to drop, re-evaluate our position before it’s too late.
It’s certainly something I’m concerned about as a software dev.
kin_nell on
Took a black cab from central London to Heathrow last year and the driver spent the first half of the journey telling me how the country was doomed and what a terrible time it was to be a taxi driver. Second half of the journey was all about his big house in Essex and his holiday cottage on the Norfolk coast plus he’d just got back from a family holiday in Dubai.
I don’t think he saw the issue….
fn5011 on
All the other reasons, plus now due to digital payments they are in the formal economy so have taxes to pay
Vondonklewink on
What even is this article? Cabbies, afaik, never made six figures. £170K is insane, consultants make less than that. The average wage for a black cab driver in London today is £40K, which is barely a liveable wage in London. The UK national average for cab drivers is between £14K and £30K, with London predictably being markedly above average. Where are these figures coming from?
ThreePeaceSuits on
Some real nasty right wing, classist takes on this. Yikes. Not surprising with what this sub has become. Shame
19 Comments
Wow, no idea you could and still can make that much dosh driving a cab
So they used to benefit from a market in which both supply and access was deliberately tightly restricted, but has now been blown apart by technology and exposed to general market forces?
We need a number once unavoidable car expenses are taken off. Otherwise it doesn’t sound overly bad. Barely 6 figures? So what, top 3% of earners? Much more info is needed, but his admission of how much some have made makes it very difficult to sympathise with them.
Helps when they don’t declare most of it and don’t pay tax
Where I live taxi drive and drug dealer is pretty much the same thing.
Reckon my 60k a year job would have been paid an equivalent 200k in the 80 u/thetelegraph
Also they didn’t make £170k, that’s an upwards inflation adjusted number.
Back when they’d take unsuspecting tourists on what should be a 1 mile route over 4 miles cause they didn’t know any better
Boo hoo. The job was full of opinionated assholes who would rip you off at the first opportunity. So sick of their‘rules don’t apply to us’ like they’re some kind of emergency service. Remember pulling in to take a phone call from the hospital where my dad had been admitted. Half empty taxi parking strip on a quiet morning. Fat twats descended on me like I was shitting sausage rolls.
We voted brexit to stick to these metropolitan elite types.
I work in a busy part of London with one of those flashing traffic signs (when cars can go IF there’s no one crossing) and I routinely see them actively threatening to hit pedestrians. They cause so much noise pollution, always extremely stressed and honking at everything. They actively accelerate if they see someone crossing the street near the end of crossing time. It seems like they would be happy to purposely cause an accident and injure someone if they’re crossing slowly or still on the street when the light turns green.
I honestly used to take them all the time because it’s convenient but this behaviour has absolutely put me off getting in one of those. I would not miss them one bit if they end up in museums and the drivers are forced to do an app instead where you can see their ratings and bad/reckless drivers get filtered out.
>Some people worked all the hours God sent and other people never went to work. That’s the deciding factor.
>My best year would have been in the late 1980s when I cleared £50,000 a year – in today’s money that’s about £170,000. Today, a black cab driver, who works six days a week, doesn’t take many holidays, will earn about £100,000 a year.
>One of the biggest issues in the industry at the moment is how many cab drivers are having to register for VAT because they earn over £85,000 a year.
>During a weekday, we are looking to gross £35 to £40 an hour. On weekends and at nights, I’d want to gross at least £50 an hour
>About 55pc of cabbies are owners and 45pc rent cabs. If you rent, you will probably pay about £350 a week. To buy a cab outright is about £70,000, so most people buy them on a Personal Contract Plan. That would probably cost you about £250 a week.
>The cabs are electric, so you have to charge them. If you have a home charger and you arrange a night tariff where after midnight you pay hardly anything for electricity, you can get away with charging it for a fiver. If you charge it on the street, you can pay anything up to £30.
£100k at £40 and hour is 2500 hours work. That’s 48 hours a week, every week, no illness, no holidays, no slacking off and browsing Reddit on the clock. Then expenses (at the low end): £13k for PCP on the car, £1.8k for the electric, hiring an accountant to do your tax return and claw back VAT on business expenses.
The money involved isn’t out of the ordinary for a skilled independent contractor working way over the average working week.
Cabbies should be on about £60k after the car expenses come off, so barely six figures sounds quite reasonable.
Reddit when a train driver earning £100k a year strikes: 🥰
Reddit when a cab driver makes £100k a year with no employment benefits 😤
The amount of knowledge they had learn is really admirable. However, the knowledge has been replaced by reliable GPS. Technology has blown open the barriers to entry.
We should all keep an eye on the barriers to entry for our jobs and, when they start to drop, re-evaluate our position before it’s too late.
It’s certainly something I’m concerned about as a software dev.
Took a black cab from central London to Heathrow last year and the driver spent the first half of the journey telling me how the country was doomed and what a terrible time it was to be a taxi driver. Second half of the journey was all about his big house in Essex and his holiday cottage on the Norfolk coast plus he’d just got back from a family holiday in Dubai.
I don’t think he saw the issue….
All the other reasons, plus now due to digital payments they are in the formal economy so have taxes to pay
What even is this article? Cabbies, afaik, never made six figures. £170K is insane, consultants make less than that. The average wage for a black cab driver in London today is £40K, which is barely a liveable wage in London. The UK national average for cab drivers is between £14K and £30K, with London predictably being markedly above average. Where are these figures coming from?
Some real nasty right wing, classist takes on this. Yikes. Not surprising with what this sub has become. Shame