Wild West End

ON A brisk Tuesday evening most of the shops on Oxford Street, a busy London thoroughfare, are shutting for the night. But outside Selfridges, a posh department store, another industry is just getting started. Eight pedicabs wait outside for custom; all are staffed by young Latvian men in sweatshirts and trainers. In nearby Soho, dozens of others—manned by Bulgarians, Cypriots and Turks—cart diners and tourists through the narrow streets.

Since the late 1990s the number of rickshaws in London has swelled. As they are unregulated, with no set fare or formal licensing structure, precise figures are hard to come by. The London Pedicab Operators Association, which represents 300 drivers, estimates that around 700 pedal the capital’s streets. Disgruntled taxi drivers suggest the figure is far higher.

Mostly they cater for drunken clubbers or tourists who cannot find their way round the city. But the internationalisation of the capital continues to be a boost. Arabs are the biggest fans of pedicabs, says Emil, a Bulgarian driver in Soho. They often ask to go to Shake Shack, an American burger chain, or to be pedalled along the Edgware Road (a hub for London’s Arabs) in wagons blaring music. Scandinavians tend to ask for strip clubs, drivers say. More demure Britons want to go to the theatre.

Plenty of Londoners dislike the pedicabs. “They’re not competition—just a pain in the bum,” says Steve McNamara, of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association. Rickshaws slow down traffic; they are also eye-wateringly expensive. A short trip around the West End can cost £40. Councils complain that they are unsafe. On a recent ride, your correspondent, a hardened Londoner, gripped the edge of her seat as taxis blared, white vans cut up her driver and double-decker buses whooshed perilously close.

Despite this, rickshaws have proved hard to get rid of. Elsewhere stricter rules apply: a pedicab company in Oxford is limited to pre-booked tours and weddings. In Scotland they are licensed under street-trading laws. But in London laws over “stagecoaches” differ from the rest of the country’s. Anyone can operate without a licence, and previous attempts to regulate the industry have failed.

Some are trying again. In May the Law Commission, a body that recommends legal reforms, suggested that rickshaws should be licensed just like minicabs or taxis. Local councils back the idea. This would make it harder to set up a pedicab business, and require more stringent safety tests. Tourists keen for a burger, or a strip club, may have to walk—or even take the Tube.