Rickshaws: Enemies of the People

It’s a very summery time of year with people drinking outside and enjoying the evenings that just keep getting longer. The weather is beautiful, allowing people the chance to walk along streets that once seemed so plodding and to enjoy the lavish sunsets. Then suddenly, your appreciation of the Thames flowing under Waterloo Bridge is shattered by the screeching of tyres and the ding-a-ling of a bell.

What’s this? Why it’s a rickshaw? A half-breed of elegance and peasant labour. The rickshaw is an increasing scourge of London’s streets and one that’s only set to get worse now that summer is on its way. The driver of this mutant vehicle will offer a friendly greeting and ask if you want a ride. The response you want to give is: ‘No you prat. I’m busy enjoying the wonders of the early evening sky, the inexpressible wonder of the merging of the purples, the pinks and the oranges. I don’t want a ride in something that looks like it has just been used to transport chickens!’

However, British natural reserve kicks in. You mumble some kind of pathetic platitude and try and get back to distracting yourself from the hectic whirl of city life.

Rickshaws are annoying on two counts. Firstly, they clog up the roads, lumbering through bus lanes and making it difficult for cyclists and traffic to get past.

The worst manifestation of the rickshaw is when a group of drunks divide themselves into two and decide to use the rickshaws to have a race. To see them clamber in, giggling and whooping, you would think that they’re about to recreate the race-off in Grease. They believe that they’re in Cadillacs with the Pink Ladies cheering them on. The reality is that they’re morons prattling away with a stream of green vomit trailing from the back.

The second reason to abhor the rickshaws is that they are pretentious. The sentiment of being in a rickshaw is the same one of being in a horse and carriage. However, the reality is that instead of a sturdy and athletic horse pulling you along, you’ve got some sweaty out of work actor lumping you along the Charing Cross Road.

I don’t even know why people use them. They’re cumbersome, slow and at every enforced stop, you have to sit there, trying to distance yourself from the people regarding you as some hoity-toity twerp.

The benefit of taxis is that you can shut yourself away from the noise and dirt of London’s traffic. And for good reason. London is a filthy place. It has some of the worst air quality in Europe. It’s a city so dirty that even the pollution gets cancer.

So if you’re ever tempted to get into a rickshaw, remember this. You’re not in Jaipur, allowing yourself to take in the smells and sights of this exotic place. You’re in Leicester Square, plodding past the Aberdeen Steak House.

Image by malias courtesy of Flickr