A fare question: Why are taxis yellow?

Yellow taxicabs are a remaining icon in the rapidly-changing landscape of urban cities in the United States. However, have you ever wondered where they got their distinctive color?

Not all taxicabs are the same color around the globe. For instance, traditionally in the UK they tend to be all-black. This is reportedly also the case in France.

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Meanwhile, in Spain and Italy, taxicabs are primarily white. Indeed, several statistics point out white is the more common taxi color around the globe.

Then there’s Mexico’s case, where taxis usually were white and green Volkswagen but since 2014 newer cars have a pink-top, white-bottom pattern.

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Taxicabs in the United States weren’t always yellow. TIME magazine explains that the first horseless hackney vehicles in the country were imported from France in 1907 and were red and green.

In the 1920s and 1930s, there were no standardized color for taxicabs in the United States. Instead, different companies would carry a signature color to stand out from their competition.

One of these companies was the Checker Cab Company, which dominated the taxicab service industry in the US until facing antitrust lawsuits in the 1960s.

Morris Markin, the owner of the Checker Cab Company, for the longest time also owned the iconic Yellow Cab Company, which dominated many US cities for several decades before declaring bankruptcy in 2015.

There are many theories why the Yellow Cab Company adopted that specific color for their vehicles.

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One theory is that it was the favorite color of the wife of Albert Rockwell, a General Motors executive and the founder of the Yellow Taxicab Company, a forerunner of the Yellow Cab Company.

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As they say, the most logical solution is generally the simplest explanation, and it seems likely that the Yellow Cab Company simply chose the color because it was the most visible.

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After all, yellow easily stands out in broad daylight among automobiles of a more regular color.

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Meanwhile, yellow also reflects light, making cars painted with this color more visible at nighttime.

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PNAS, the scientific journal of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, published in 2017 a study that claimed that since yellow is more visible, it resulted in 9% less road accidents.

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What is true is that in the 1960s the City of New York approved a law affirming that taxicabs had to be yellow, many US cities followed suit.

Today, services like Uber, Lyft and many others have created new competition for taxicabs. However, there’s a certain safety in knowing you can get home with only raising your arm and having enough money for the fare.

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