Trike taxi service set to take to Lake District roads
It's not a motorbike, it’s not a car, but it’s hitting the roads of the Lake District in the next few weeks.
David Lister, from Plumpton, near Penrith, secured permission to use a £22,000 three-wheeler trike, which has brake and clutch pedals like a car but is steered by handlebars, as a taxi service to take tourists around the Lakes at a licensing committee earlier this month.
At the time, he did not have the trike itself, but now he has the machine and is enjoying showing it off around Cumbria.
Mr Lister said: “I drove it up from Manchester on Monday and I have already taken it into Penrith and Carlisle, and it’s attracted a lot of attention.
“People think a trike is something you sit on and pedal and not everybody has seen one like this. People are stopping and looking at it who I have never seen in my life before.
“I went up to Longtown to see the lad that does my signwriting and all the fellows round the industrial buildings were coming to have a look and ask questions.”
The trike, which is much like that used by comedian Billy Connolly for his television travelogues, will be used to carry tourists around the Lake District.
Mr Lister had to pass a test for taxi drivers to use the trike and conditions have been imposed to regulate its safety.
But now he is almost ready to take his three wheels out on the roads, and will give it a grand debut next Sunday when he uses it to deliver Eden Council’s chairman Joan Raine to the town’s annual triathlon.
Then he will hold an open day on September 5 to show off the trike with a series of short rides, as well as the other businesses he runs with his wife from the Plumpton Calico Centre, providing herbal remedies,
He has said he will take tourists on routes of their own choosing.
http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/trike-taxi-service-set-to-take-to-lake-district-roads-1.749595?referrerPath=news
