On 21/02/2021 11:22 am, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

JohnP wrote:

Don't know why it came into my head - but I recall at one time London Taxis
had an open luggage space on the nearside front.
Was this in response to a ruling - or what is a whim of a maker?

All sorts of odd regs. For example, the driver's door couldn't be locked.
Perhaps to discourage street parking?

Almost!

The law until late 1975 or early 1976 (when the Home Office relaxed it)
was that only the driver's door (plus the front luggage door on an FX4
or similar) could be lockable.

It was the passenger (ie, rear) doors which were not allowed to be
fitted with locks.

A cab certainly could be left reasonably secure, whether in the street
or elsewhere.

Whisper it, but there were ways of locking the rear (passenger) doors at
night.

An oddity was that the driver's door could not be locked from outside
with a key. The driver had to lock that door from inside, then climb
over the dividing panel between his seat and the luggage space, exiting
the cab through the luggage door, which was the only one with a key lock.

I'd wondered if it was to discourage it being used as a private car when
off duty?

But it does provide luggage space on a smaller vehicle than one with a
boot, if you don't allow a passenger alongside the driver. So the servant
went by bus. ;-)

Some localities (Blackpool comes to mind) did allow the FX4 to carry six
passengers, with an extra seat fixed into the space designed for luggage
(it also obviously had to have a seat belt provided because the law then
was that they had to be fitted in all front seats).