THE VIDEO SHELF · london taxi knowledge vs gps
Who's faster around London: a taxi driver or a GPS?
Tom Scott races a London black-cab driver who has memorized The Knowledge against a phone GPS across the city, comparing local expertise to navigation software.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN people link it in discussions of taxi drivers' spatial memory and how cabbies handle roadworks and traffic.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Tom Scott plus
- Topic
- london taxi knowledge vs gps
- Format
- demo
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 3
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2022–2026
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
There was a recent Tom Scott video ( [VIDEO] ) where he was using a GPS and Tom Hutley (a London cabbie) only relied on his London knowledge to get around, travelling the same distance after reaching certain landmarks. It was interesting to watch.
rhdunn on Hacker News · 2022-12
In The Decline of the City GridThey also have to remember where roadwork is/was and what kind of traffic is best/worst at a given time. There's a fantastic Tom Scott video on it [VIDEO]
phist_mcgee on Hacker News · 2026-08
In Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.