Alarm bells started to ring at TfL with the disclosure that the number of students currently being tested to become London taxi drivers has fallen to its lowest level yet, to just 552. In November 2019 the number of candidates studying the Knowledge of London (‘KoL’) at the testing stages, otherwise known as ‘Appearances’, dropped below 1,000 for the first time and stood at 943. In addition, 714 candidates had not yet reached the testing stages but were signed on to the KoL and learning the capital’s road network. Fast forward post-pandemic restrictions to August 2021 and the number of KoL candidates at the testing stages tumbled further to just 552, and worryingly only a further 363 candidates are currently waiting to reach the testing stages. Unsurprisingly TfL now no longer publish the results relating to the number of KoL students actively learning, so a cynic like myself could conclude that those in the early stages could now only be in double figures, and as around 70 per cent of students training to become licensed London taxi drivers DO NOT COMPLETE the Knowledge of London testing process, in two years we could be seeing only a couple of dozen qualifying a year.