Happy Birthday Congestion Charge
by Gillian Thomas
It was the first anniversary of London's congestion charge yesterday. Doesn't time fly. Apparantly 75% of Londoners support the measure.
A linked thought is about an advertising campaign from taxi-drivers assocation LTDA. I caught sight of recently on a billboard outside the Eurostar terminal. I don't know if any other Demosites saw it when walking into the office. But it was a picture of the pedicabs that are a common sight in the West End, with a caption saying something like "Do we want to be like a Third World country?".
I'm sure an attack on developing countries in this way is against advertising rules, and it is not the first time that LTDA have fallen foul of the advertising standards authority.
But just as i was about to get outraged the advert mysteriously disappeared. I can only assume the LTDA got their fingers rapped for their lack of taste, or they could only afford 2 days billboard space.
At least the pedicabs seem to be winning.
Bobby Webster
I just thought it was funny that the LTDA felt that the primary indicator of being part of the third world was the presence of rickshaws, and not, say, poverty, disease and starvation.
I suspect they took it down because tourists disembarking from Eurostar and about to climb into taxis took one look at the billboard, thought 'that looks like fun', and hired a pedicab instead...