Rochdale residents will have to scrub up their language skills because as of Friday taxi drivers in the city are no longer legally required to speak English.
Changes in legislation were introduced on Friday which scrapped the English exam for anybody wanting to drive a taxi.
With almost 14,000 taxis and an incredible 40,000 drivers almost 82% were born outside of the country.
Catch a cab in the city and there is a better than reasonable chance that the driver’s first language will be Urdu, Sylheti or even Spanish. Rarely English.
About 24% of drivers in New York are originally from Bangladesh with the rest coming from 167 different countries.
Their contemporaries in London are required to sit a series of exams called The Knowledge which require them to memorise 6,000 miles of roads in the capital. Rochdale New York is laid out in a grid system and is easier to navigate and drivers are able to depend upon satellite navigation systems.
Driving a taxi in New York is one of the most dangerous jobs in the city with an average of two per month murdered every year.
The new legislation, which was introduced by Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council, seems designed to allow vulnerable people with few options access to a terrifying, thankless job with a better than average opportunity to be murdered by a lunatic.
How people find the time to be outraged at this or why the Telegraph think they can write an article about it without mentioning that the murder rate amongst New York taxi drivers is at least ten times the national average is beyond us.
But hey, they’re mostly immigrants. Well done Telegraph, more unbiased “journalism.” Dickheads.
