By Robert Emslie
In the late 1920s in Berlin, hailing a cab would likely have resulted in one of these cool Motax-Droschken or D-Rad motorcycle taxis showing up. Deutsches Rad Werke built 180 of the Motax-Droschken exclusively for the Berlin market to counter the high cost of traditional automotive taxi service. The D-Rads could transport a single passenger for half the cost of the car. It was however cost that doomed the D-Rads as their maintenance costs proved to high for their owners to maintain a profit.
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Jeff Glucker
That's…interesting. An Uber-sidecar perhaps?
That's Über to you, mein Herr.
My dots fell off! Had them so nicely balanced on top, too…
Mmm… Uber and Sidecar are two separate service providers, as is Lyft. Here's a handy guide (from San Francisco, California)
Sidecar:
<img src="http://media.utsandiego.com/img/photos/2013/09/26/RidesharingSidecarPortrait_r620x349.jpg" width=450>
Lyft:
<img src="http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/files/2014/04/lyft.jpg" width=450>
Uber:
<img src="http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/171/2/0/insane_car_crash__gif__by_enderman699-d69xqro.gif">
I don't want to know what that fuzzy pink mustache looks like after a few months of road grime and dead insects. I'm not sure I even wanted to know what a fresh one looked like.
From some Googling, apparently the pedestrian survived despite the Darwin Award attempt of crossing when neither he nor the PT Cruiser had right-of-way (which belonged to the car that ended up on its roof.)
It can be interesting to compare car repair costs to motorcycles…
-Some years ago, my '96 Thunderbird and my KLR650 both needed radiator replacements within a few weeks of each other. The T-bird's radiator came in an appropriately car-radiator-sized box (2'x3'x6"-ish) and cost under $200. The KLR's radiator could have been safely packaged in a shoebox (assuming the shoebox was for gunboat-class shoes like my usual US-system 12.5 or 13) and cost $300.
-This is motorcycle/rider/road/tire-dependent, but it was routine for me to go through about 3 rear tires and 2 fronts for every 10,000 miles on the KLR running 50/50ish dual-sport tires and also about 50% pavement/50% dirt & gravel. My riding season would peak in June/July with the warm weather and the twilight lingering almost to the 11 PM hour, and I had times where a new rear tire installed in early June was due for replacement in late July/early August. It was hard to be too bothered when the tires cost $70-$80 and the worst part of the replacement was either a) not poking a hole in the tube or b) making sure the rear wheel and drive chain were correctly aligned after the reinstall.
The KLR has a load bearing radiator. It's designed to have a big assed dirt bike fall over on it. My DRZ400 also has $300 radiators. For this reason, $100 radiator guards and a wider tank are on the list ahead of dirt bike helmet (I'm still using my Arai Signet-Q, I just look like a noob on the trail) but behind dirt bike boots (my Daytona touring boots are kaput after 15 years.)
<img src="http://aviciouscycle.ca/images/ProductImages/DRZ400Eunabiker.jpg" width=200>