Cabbie driven to create a game on home city

A FORMER taxi driver has put his knowledge of a Scottish city’s streets to good use by creating a new board game.

Derek Carroll, of Edinburgh, spent more than a dozen years driving passengers to their destinations.

Now the 57-year-old has developed a game called Edinburgh Taxi that takes players on a journey around the city and contains around 600 local history and general knowledge questions.

The more questions players answer correctly, the more money they make on their fare. And there are also plans to recreate the game for other cities such as Glasgow, London and New York.

Mr Carroll said the game was inspired by the typical daily life of a taxi driver.

He added: “I always had a huge interest in the history of Edinburgh.

“I enjoyed being a taxi driver, but the novelty of it soon wore off and I was more interested in my surroundings.

“I would sit in the taxi rank late at night and dream. I remember one Tuesday night, sitting on the rank reading a book about Edinburgh’s history. I started thinking about how it might be possible to create a trivia board game, where all the questions could be based on one city.

“The answer was obvious – create the game around the working life of a taxi driver. The better your local knowledge, the better the tips, the more you earn. I picked up an A4 sheet of paper and that’s where the journey began.”

After coming up with ideas for the rules, questions and even multi-coloured taxithemed playing pieces, Mr Carroll took the game to manufacturers.

And now the idea he first thought of nearly 16 years ago has finally become reality.

Mr Carroll added: “The game has many unusual features and I’m hopeful in time it will become one of the best-selling board games.”