Macarthur's Law: much better than Sod's

I am too blue today to be fun for anyone except the most committed schadenfreudist so will post about something unrelated.

Last Thursday night I was in a cab. This in itself is shocking news, as I award myself said luxury under a handful of times each year and the fact that I made an exception is testament to the amount of white wine I had consumed that evening.

But like a good spendthrift, my decision to travel using this mode of transport was influenced by the fact that another party-goer was going my way. In fact, she was planning to travel some distance beyond my destination and offered to split the taxi fare. A cab home for half price? It's not often I can turn down a 50% off deal.

By the time we arrived in my area, the meter read just under £10. I handed over a tenner, she took it, the door was shut fairly quickly and I began the walk down my road. I told myself not to become irate but failed to remain calm. All too quickly, the familiar post-shared-cab internal griping commenced. Why had I paid 100% of my journey home, allowing my hereto unknown passenger to pay only the cost of the journey from my house to hers. Of course, we should have split the first section of the journey, where we were both travelling - but that maths was out of the question at that time of night and to bring up the issue would have been petty and awkward.

Now, believe me, I know that life is not fair. I know that bad things happen to good people and that health is not a human right, bestowed equally upon all. But there are some small things that we have it within our power to control, and I believe this to be one of them. I propose absolute clarity on this issue from now on - a new standard in operation anywhere that vehicles are hired for private transport. The rule will be called Macarthur's Law and states that, where X number of passengers are sharing a cab to X number of destinations, the amount paid should be the total fare accrued on reaching their destination divided by X. Thus if passengers A, B and C are travelling to destinations 1, 2 and 3, on reaching destination 1, A should pay the total fare at that point, divided by 3. On reaching destination 2, B should pay the total fare at this new point, divided by 2 and on reaching the final destination 3, C should pay what is left.

Spread the word, people. It's mutual understandings like this that will make the world into a happier place. There's not much in life that IS fair but here we have an opportunity to, rather wonderfully, make fares fair. Surely the pun in itself should be enough to persuade you of Macarthur's Law's rightful place in our lexicon. As things stand, if I ever cross paths again with the selfish individual who took my tenner last Thursday I'll hit her in the eye with a spanner and nick her wallet: she owes me a fiver.