~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Please read the PediCab Info tab first!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Pedicabs are pretty cool, you are essentially elevated on the street view, so both sides of the sidewalk are pretty visible. Plus, you and your friends can listen to music or get area info while on the move faster than you can by yourself. I like it for finding friends and acquaintances. <
How to Drive a Vehicle with Pedicabs on the Road [The boring, un-fun stuff first]
First thing's first: do NOT hit us. some of us, like myself, are really good at taking down license plate and other car information. don't hit us. don't even joke about it The end.
The DMV provides safe driving tips in their driver's safety manual. Even better tips are available for anyone who takes a driver's safety class to remove points off of their record. These are like the x-seconds rules for freeway driving (how far behind another vehicle one should be at).
Here's one urban driving tip I have from my >(one)< sister. if you are in a regular passenger vehicle, you should be stopped so that you can at least fully see the bottom of the bumper of the vehicle in front of you. >hello! that does not apply to ambulances and other larger vehicles!< (I would imagine that vans, SUV, and other larger vehicles need the >clearance< of seeing the bottom of the rear wheels of the car in front of them). Usually a pedicab can get through this amount of space.Those of us with experience are usually pretty agile.
it also helps for you to be in alignment with the vehicle in front of you, so that the rickshaw can pass by fluidly, or get to a side in which it does pass fluidly. A car blocking our path of travel hinders our business.
Potholes are fun, they are fun to steer around & a surprise to bump; they do, however, cause more gas consumption for cars. No one likes their jobs negated (ie. my fuel saving pedicabbing vs. the waste caused by potholes). As previously stated, potholes are fun. The "rainbow-shaped" or bowed streets are NOT. These make the requirement of driving to the side of the road extremely strenuous and aggrevating. In a city where weather is not a frequent occurance, it does not make ANY sense for such huge deluges of rain happen, what, maybe two days in every ten year period?!?! Pedicabs are on the roads every day AND have been put into future city planning. Why are we so marginalized? >oh, and now "the city" is further "marginalizing" the pedicabbing business by funding, (yes, per the website, the city is funding) a motorized bicycle program. implications? how about a bicycle first responder program FIRST?!?!< There IS more than one type of storm drainage that could have been/could be employed. >like drainage grooves!< One thing's for sure, urban planners and architects should not be hired from elsewhere 10-year, or longer permanent residents only from now on >with avid UNDERSTANDING of local and regional ecology< PLEASE! >we cannot afford all of these "fires" and all of the other detriments to or ecological and social well-being!< these other people do not know or consider enough,it's too obvious when encountering these counterergonomics !...
Momentum is not a wonderful thing to loose. Sometimes it is really hard going uphill. Sometimes pedicabs run red lights, get caught struggling through an intersection, or just slow at a stop sign. >like "starving artists," sometimes we don't make enough money to eat properly and therefore seem to not "think" or "pay" our "debts" properly.< Please, respect that we pedicabs are 1)independently contracted, self-employed, and often don't make enough money, >and sometimes make a ton< 2)PHYSICALLY working, and working HARD 3)Carrying Other Individuals! not their phone company, their parents, their employers, affiliations, etc.><
4)like sketch artists (which, imho, should be employed in the courtrooms a lot more than they are), pedicabs are not 100perecent accurrate with everything; almost all of us try to help/do the best we can with what we can. ... like taxis, even tips to us could viably be used as a business expense writeoff (i say this as i have not written a receipt in over a year). >5) sometimes, there is a lot of other things to be dealing with on an inpulse basis than just driving, we give directions, dining and clubbing recommendations and tons of tourist info<
Honk to say hi or warn us of an imminent danger, but please, don't honk to be an asshole>i work for myself, jerkface, i talk like a sailor when i wanna<. i am not a horse or mule, nor am i in the flintstones. generally speaking, i stopped receiving these comments after 2006; should i start receiving such degrating comments again, i will do as i did with the license plates and positive i.d. with my camera phone.
Travel on a pedicab is usually pretty fast, even at the height of any pedicab driver's struggles, pedicabs are faster than walking and definitely faster than getting caught in a street filled with traffic. Plus, there's usually music and I (and most) can tell you anything about the city you might want to know if a breath can be gotten in otherwise.
I personally did not like advertising without getting paid for it. So, I flipped the ads around and use the back as a white board for whatever art I can get out of four colours. I am hoping to recruit any local artists besides myself to have me "advertise"/pubicize/promote their images.
PROJECTS I AM LOOKING TO START
Please note : Now that the following ideas are published on the internet, they are now copy-writed and protected to the extent of the law..
Personally, I am about to start working on creating a day-long tour of downtown art galleries and studios. This means that I need to start proposing the idea and network with the arts commitees and gallery owners and post dates of availability. I will also have a map layer of the below posted proposal laid out (I do not believe in supremacy of opinion or bias when it comes to contemporary art, hence why i wanted to get into the therapeutic arts in a non-traditional, non-linear, and non-psychological perspective). hopefully, I will have this all worked out by,> oh, WAIT summer 2014. <
>if someone who knows about app creations, i have a few ideas for improving business and making it more fun as well as some other stuff<
I am also working on a mapping project. I never heard back from the city or any said associations when proposing by e-mail >or mail< >or in person<, so I will be doing all of it by hand on transparencies and actually doing the footwork on foot until I can get a contract to apply it to GIS (Global Information Systems) and funding for the updates, should that occur. >there "is" map 21, however, for some reason, it Just isn't showing on my "internet." FOIA?<
I am also hoping to get into some sort of geo-caching fun. I don't use GPS >intentionally< myself, but i think i could start some sort of recreation/games without having to have one; plus, i think there are rentable devices. Scavenger hunts and treasure maps are a given, but i think some other, more creative games could be more interesting. Ideas and suggestions are welcome. I guess it would entail figuring out co-ordinates sans >< GPS device and using a map, so GPS could be used, but it wouldn't ever be en punto when written off of device. This is another project I want to complete by summer 2013 (so we, estabished drivers, wouldn't need to "compete" with the newcomming >or reintroduced< drivers, i think this could be a cool/fun thing for HS graduating seniors or something, IMHO).
it would be cool to create and drive a wooden/mostly wooden pedicab; something with similarity to a "Woodie" automobile. that's yet another "castle in the clouds" project of mine>plus hardwood is super expensive when you consider what i "make" off of pedicabbing<. ...
i'm doing any of this piece-meal, so patience, please.
regardless...
EVERY RIDE MAKES FUNDING FOR THESE PROJECTS POSSIBLE!!! Thank You for your business!
Hey, i EVEN put paypal, if you feel so inclined ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
Allows for private, financial contribution via PayPal