'Tombstone Taxi' offers free lifts around Leeds to change attitudes around death

As part of their ongoing mission to change attitudes towards death, the disruptive life insurance company last week invited the people of Leeds to take part in two thought-provoking activations around the city.

Tombstone Taxis wanted to "get people thinking about what they’d like to happen when they die and what they want to do whilst they’re still very much alive".

The Tombstone Taxi graced the streets of Leeds last Thursday and Friday, where a dozen members of the public hopped in for a free ride and a conversation about death, answering a myriad of questions, from whether or not they yet have life insurance, right through to how they want to be remembered, how they want their loved ones to spend the life insurance pay out and what they want written on their tombstone.

Commenting on the activations and their mission to change attitudes around death, spokesperson for the company Eddy Edwards said: “We’re all about changing attitudes towards death and both our Tombstone Taxi and Tiny Tombstone activations aim to do exactly that.

"Too often, death is viewed as a taboo subject that shouldn’t be spoken about, and our mission is to challenge that every day. If we don’t talk about death, then we simply avoid planning for the unavoidable! None of us want to end up leaving behind a burden of complicated decisions for our loved ones and not be remembered in the ways we might’ve hoped for.

“We’re not out to offend anyone. We simply want to emphasise the importance of living lives we’ll be proud of when the day does come, and to sort out our affairs whilst we still have a chance.

"As it happens, converting our hearse into a Tombstone Taxi for the day and having people hunt around for tiny tombstones certainly turned heads and it definitely got people thinking and talking about death. There’s a lot wrong with the life insurance industry and we’re on a mission to improve it, believe it or not."