On March 22, taxi drivers around the world celebrate their professional holiday — International Taxi Driver Day.
It was on this day in 1907 that the first cars equipped with special meters appeared on the streets of London. London cab drivers named the counter «taximeter» — from the French «tax» («board»), and the Greek «metron» («measurement»). Since then, individual urban transport began to be called taxis, and cab drivers — as taxi drivers.
Although the patent for an automatic counter of the distance traveled by a wheeled carriage and the corresponding board was received back in 1875 by the German Wilhelm Friedrich Nedler, who called his device «Taxanom» (German). Taxe «board» + Greek. νόμος «law»). However, the inventor was able to put it into production only in 1884 in Hamburg. The city police department soon issued detailed rules for operating horse-drawn cart meters. But the first to install «taxameters» on cars was presumably Friedrich Greiner from Stuttgart — in 1896, who ordered 10 Daimler Riemenwagen motor carriages, which took to the streets in May of the following year, but did not become widespread. Since the displacement of horse-drawn cab drivers took a lot of time.
In 1907, motor «cabs» with counters, now called «taximeters», in London became the first taxis in their modern sense. The first London taxi cars were green and red. Yellow, which is now considered traditional for these machines, appeared with the light hand of John Hertz, founder of Hertz Corporation.
Taking old cars as payment for new ones, the enterprising American repainted used cars yellow and used them as taxis. Naturally, such bright cars were easy to notice on the city streets. Later, almost all such companies made it a rule to repaint taxis yellow, and yellow became the classic color of taxis for the whole world.
Yellow has become a classic taxi color for the whole world (Photo: StockSnap, licensed by pixabay.com)
Another recognizable symbol of the taxi was the checkers pattern. According to one version, the first checkers pattern appeared in the 20s of the last century on the cars of an American company that borrowed them from racing symbols. It was supposed to attract the attention of customers and push them to think about the speed of movement.
In Russia, the first cars with taximeters appeared in 1906 in St. Petersburg and Minsk, in 1907 — in Moscow, and then in other cities. However, passenger transportation on «taxi trains has only become widespread in the capitals. By 1914, the taxi fleet of St. Petersburg consisted of more than 400 vehicles, which were serviced by the Central Dispatch Service. However, in 1917, after the October Revolution, taxis in Russian cities temporarily ceased to exist. Only on June 21, 1925, regular taxi traffic was reopened in Moscow. It is this day that Moscow taxi drivers consider the birthday of modern Russian taxis and, along with International Taxi Day, celebrate it as their professional holiday.
• Infographics – poster «March 22 — International Taxi Driver's Day»
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