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OPINION

Are some London cabbies becoming too arrogant, asks Jenny Jones

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Green London Assembly Member is a fan of Lodon's iconic black cabs - but not some of their drivers

A video has emerged of an outburst last week by Boris Johnson, aimed at a black cabbie who swore at him. Boris swore back, and that’s the story, not that a licenced cabbie was abusive on a street.

Unusually, I have sympathy for Boris on this. He works hard, albeit not at the jobs he should be doing, and he is presumably under a lot of stress.

I also have sympathy for cabbies. It’s true that black cabbies have been treated badly over Uber being allowed in London and there has been insufficient police and Transport for London action to stop illegal minicabs which hit the black cab trade’s profits as well as make life more dangerous for us all, but as someone who also gets shouted at by cabbies, I’m fed up.

I’d better say straight away that I love black cabs. I use them about once a month to get home from a late evening event and feel completely safe once inside. (I’ve even got into trouble for using black cabs too often in the Evening Standard).

So when I say something negative about cabbies, it is balanced by my belief in their value and professionalism.

However, there is little reciprocation.

The frequent accusation when I’m on my bike is that ‘you cyclists’ don’t obey the law/cycle dangerously/cycle on the pavement.

Of course that’s true of some stupid selfish cyclists. But I stop patiently at red lights. And whereas once I was often left waiting alone, now I’m often in the midst of a peloton of well mannered legal cyclists.

The Met’s Operation Safeway has probably had an impact on the way most people cycle and I welcome the change.

By contrast, just in the last two weeks, I’ve seen two black cabbies red light jump, one pull into and through an advance stop line when the light was already red, and one who deliberately pulled out from the kerb in front of me when I was cycling in a cycle lane.

Not to mention other infringements.

I’ve started to take licence numbers so I can name and shame on Twitter.

I’m left wondering if the old fashioned pride that cabbies once quite rightly took in their jobs has turned into an arrogance about their being the only people on the roads who really understand conditions?

If that’s so, then Transport for London and the Met have a serious job of education to do.

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40 comments

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jgmacca | 8 years ago
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Not relevant to the London cabbie debate, but where I live there are two bus companies plying their trade and there's a noticeable difference in how their drivers treat me when I'm cycling.
The drivers of one bus company will sit in behind me if they know they're going to be stopping 200 yards up the road, they actually give way at roundabouts and even pull out wide to pass me.
Drivers of the other bus company regularly charge past at close quarters before stopping at the next stop, pull out in front of me etc. basically show scant disregard for my well being as a road user.
I can only put this down to the training (or lack of) that the drivers get from within their companies, needless to say if I'm ever catching a bus I'll wait extra time at the stop to give my trade to the nice to cyclists bus company.

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harrybav replied to jgmacca | 8 years ago
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Article wrote:

Of course that’s true of some stupid selfish cyclists. But I stop patiently at red lights..

Well bully for you with your idiot name-calling. People stop at or run reds for multiple reasons, some of them safety-related. I hope you achieve the effect you are looking for, calling other people stupid and selfish.
And equating a person with a bike doing something with the same act carried out in a two ton box, now that truly is stupid, woolly thinking.

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fukawitribe replied to harrybav | 8 years ago
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vbvb wrote:
Article wrote:

Of course that’s true of some stupid selfish cyclists. But I stop patiently at red lights..

Well bully for you with your idiot name-calling. People stop at or run reds for multiple reasons, some of them safety-related.

..and some of them because the person is stupid and/or selfish - or is this mystical tribe called 'cyclists' truly the only group of humans in the world who have no-one in it who is either of the above ?

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edster99 | 8 years ago
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They remind me of the print industry before Eddie Shah.

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LeighNichol | 8 years ago
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My experience of black cab drivers when I used to work in the city was that they would start off friendly, and the conversation would 90% of the time descend into hate for cyclists/foreigners/anyone non white. I don't say that lightly either. You could almost guarantee it. Majority of them are overweight frustrated wankers. I work with a couple of ex cabbies now and the amount of times I've got into arguments with them because of racist/xenophobic comments, why don't cyclists pay road tax blah blah blah, is unreal.

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marcswales | 8 years ago
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"some"?
"becoming"?

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Colin Peyresourde | 8 years ago
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I think the main question of this article is unfairly biased to begin with. Replace the word cabbie with cyclist, white people, black people or whatever and you'll probably get a slew of confirmation bias. I actually find cab drivers pretty decent and I don't think cyclist make their job easy. We are talking about an autonomous group of people and so there will be those that behave badly and those that act with respect (that goes for cyclists, cabbies, car drivers, lorry drivers) and so you should not throw the baby out with the bath water.

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zanf | 8 years ago
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bikebot wrote:

We don't need to group the bad cab drivers together, they've already done it. It's called the LTDA.

LTDA represent less than 6000 of the far too many, mostly empty 24,000 cabbies currently licenced.

Ciaranthecab wrote:

An awful lot of piousness and sactimony from a lot of people on this forum. Can you look yourselves in the eye and say that you always adhere to the rules of the road and that you never jeopardise yourselves, pedestrians, other road users?

Stand on any junction in London and watch endless black cabs jump red lights. You can even go and watch that video of the cyclist who collided with the side of the bus, and what most didnt notice is that a black cab jumped the lights.

And the sooner that black cabs are forced to convert their vehicles away from diesel and stop polluting the environment with PM2.5, the better.

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ChairRDRF | 8 years ago
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Jenny Jones is normally bang on about cycling and safety in London - and has done more for cyclists in London than just about any other elected London politician. (OK, she has chaired and spoken at our conferences and has supported Road Danger Reduction for years).

But I have to disagree about the effects of Operation Safeway.

I agree that during and immediately after enforcement exercises drivers will often behave better in the area of enforcement. But I'm not happy about where and how the policing is done and its overall effects. I wrote about this when OS started http://rdrf.org.uk/2013/11/29/is-there-a-police-blitz-on-unsafe-driving-... and I haven't seen anything since to change my mind about its failures.

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PaulBox | 8 years ago
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I used to use them a lot, but would rather walk or get a tube now. I have probably used one all year.

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Ciaranthecab | 8 years ago
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Total vitriol from the majority of posters against cab drivers although, thankfully, some intelligent posts.

An awful lot of piousness and sactimony from a lot of people on this forum. Can you look yourselves in the eye and say that you always adhere to the rules of the road and that you never jeopardise yourselves, pedestrians, other road users?

There are a lot of cab drivers who behave like they own the road....there's a lot of cyclists who do as well. As a cab driver, I always try to drive considerately and safely and I always will. Hopefully, cyclists will do the same.

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felixcat replied to Ciaranthecab | 8 years ago
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Ciaranthecab wrote:

An awful lot of piousness and sactimony from a lot of people on this forum. Can you look yourselves in the eye and say that you always adhere to the rules of the road and that you never jeopardise yourselves, pedestrians, other road users?

I try hard to adhere to road traffic law. I never RLJ, in car or on bike. I never speed. I try hard to never endanger others. The only way I endanger myself is by getting on my bike and sharing the road with drivers who routinely break the law and ignore the Highway Code.
That you cannot imagine anyone does their best to behave properly on the road is telling. I think you are extrapolating fromk your own behaviour.

Edit. I gave you a like by mistake.

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felixcat replied to Ciaranthecab | 8 years ago
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Ciaranthecab wrote:

As a cab driver, I always try to drive considerately and safely and I always will. Hopefully, cyclists will do the same.

Well, I think that I can promise you that no cyclist will kill a cab driver. It would be good if you could promise the same.

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bikebot replied to Ciaranthecab | 8 years ago
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Ciaranthecab wrote:

Total vitriol from the majority of posters against cab drivers although, thankfully, some intelligent posts.

An awful lot of piousness and sactimony from a lot of people on this forum. Can you look yourselves in the eye and say that you always adhere to the rules of the road and that you never jeopardise yourselves, pedestrians, other road users?

There are a lot of cab drivers who behave like they own the road....there's a lot of cyclists who do as well. As a cab driver, I always try to drive considerately and safely and I always will. Hopefully, cyclists will do the same.

I'll give you a like, for choosing to engage.

I'm a supporter of the principle of a licensed and regulated taxi service, and I also have black cab drivers in the family. I'm not a supporter of the LTDA, which I think has dreadful leadership and is fueling a tribal attitude amongst its members.

I don't know of anyone who rides in central London who hasn't at some time had a taxi driver try to bully them into the gutter. There's no other professional group that would get away with such a pattern of behaviour amongst its ranks, and it's a failure of the regulator that there are drivers who think that is at all acceptable.

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userfriendly replied to Ciaranthecab | 8 years ago
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Ciaranthecab wrote:

Can you look yourselves in the eye and say that you always adhere to the rules of the road and that you never jeopardise yourselves, pedestrians, other road users?

Yup. I can. The fact that you're asking the question implies you cannot.

Ciaranthecab wrote:

There are a lot of cab drivers who behave like they own the road....there's a lot of cyclists who do as well. As a cab driver, I always try to drive considerately and safely and I always will. Hopefully, cyclists will do the same.

I have to question your grasp on reality if you think the two are even remotely comparable. You may want to go back to school and resit some physics lessons.

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44dove replied to Ciaranthecab | 8 years ago
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True, but when a cyclist does something inconsiderate they annoy a few car drivers. So what. However, when a motorist does something inconsiderate somebody can get seriously injured, or killed.

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honesty | 8 years ago
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Yeh, but they are pretty much the ADB of the taxi world, so it's to be expected.

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srchar | 8 years ago
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I think one of the main issues is that the "training" revolves almost entirely around memorising common driving routes in London, an entirely pointless exercise given the maturity of sat nav technology, with live traffic updates and re-routing.

If those wasted years were spent on practical training about how to safely operate a vehicle on central London's crowded roads without harming other road users, we probably wouldn't be reading this blog post.

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honesty | 8 years ago
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Replace black cab with cyclist on pretty much all the comments above, and you get a situation we all get really wound up about, grouping all as a homogenous blob.

I'm sure there are bad cab drivers, as there are bad cyclists, but really are the percentage of taxi drivers that are bad that much that we feel the need to tar the whole lot. This is pretty much the same as saying all cyclists jump red lights.

I think one thing that would go a long way to stop issues is to require all cabs to be licenced, even uber. It's then a level playing field and the government can regulate all cabs better. Then reform the regulation, as it's pants.

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bikebot replied to honesty | 8 years ago
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honesty wrote:

I'm sure there are bad cab drivers, as there are bad cyclists, but really are the percentage of taxi drivers that are bad that much that we feel the need to tar the whole lot. This is pretty much the same as saying all cyclists jump red lights

We don't need to group the bad cab drivers together, they've already done it. It's called the LTDA. Have a read of some of their publications, it's an institution that seems proud to hate everyone else on the road.

And as for their attitude to their own bad apples. A key benefit of LTDA membership is access to legal services to avoid a ban in the event of receiving 12 points. That's provided regardless of the circumstance, in other words they openly defend dangerous drivers.

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davenportmb replied to bikebot | 8 years ago
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bikebot wrote:

We don't need to group the bad cab drivers together, they've already done it. It's called the LTDA. Have a read of some of their publications, it's an institution that seems proud to hate everyone else on the road.

I've just been to their website and had a look through a past issue of the TAXI Newspaper. Jeeeeeeeeeesus...

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skull-collector... | 8 years ago
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Operation Safeway was bullcrap

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webster | 8 years ago
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Black cab drivers are their own worst enemy. How can they expect sympathy from the public when they behave like a gang of thugs given any opportunity to do so?
I understand their frustration at minicabs, who in my honest opinion should be massively culled to maybe only a thousand (from 52,000) with Addison Lee being eliminated entirely, but if they weren't so expensive then maybe more people would use them instead. There are far too many empty taxis and minicabs on the streets and they are the ones causing the congestion.

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smcc1879 | 8 years ago
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Don't get me started.....  14
http://youtu.be/_Tt9dzCMe1o

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gmac101 | 8 years ago
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I've not had much time for black cabs since one driver doored a good friend of mine, and drove off leaving her on the road with a cut up face. She was on her way to a choir rehearsal and her injuries including a severed nerve in her cheek which meant should could never sing again. The complaint service is really more about passengers and defending the drivers.

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pamplemoose | 8 years ago
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The sooner London (and the rest of the UK) is served by a fleet of autonomous Uber cars the better in my opinion. Black cabs have had their time.

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banzicyclist2 | 8 years ago
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Boy am I glad I don't have to run the gauntlet with these murderous wankers!

My problem is bus drivers they have very similar attitudes, not all but a significant number. If infringement meant loosing your licence then I'm sure attitudes would change, and road safety would improve for everyone.

A driving licence should be a privilege NOT a right. Those who are working drivers, and expose other to more risk (simply because they are driving for longer periods of time than "ordinary drivers") should be required to maintain the highest standards.

A few weeks riding a bike through rush hour because their licence has been revoked would give them a new perspective of just how dangerous any motor vehicle is to other, perfectly entitled, users of public rights of way generally known as roads.

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bikebot replied to banzicyclist2 | 8 years ago
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banzicyclist2 wrote:

My problem is bus drivers they have very similar attitudes, not all but a significant number. If infringement meant loosing your licence then I'm sure attitudes would change, and road safety would improve for everyone.

I find buses a much smaller problem, in fact many I find great. I'll qualify that by saying I don't ride in zone 1&2 that much, just a few times a month and that is a whole different world.

I think the big difference is that with buses there is a complaints procedure that seems to be at least partly effective. I've used it, I was satisfied with the response. The driver awareness and training is clearly better than it was even five years ago.

With taxis, you can complain to the PCO if you want to waste your time, it'll go in the shredder. They don't take any notice unless you were a passenger. The regulatory system has no consideration for public safety except for the fare paying public, and it seems because of this driver behaviour is worse than ever.

The whole system needs reform, and in particular the Green Badge holders (central London taxis) need a licence that's based on training to share road space with other people rather than memorise an awful lot of street names, a skill increasingly deprecated by technology.

There's clearly not much wrong with the principle of a licensed and regulated taxi service. The implementation we have now is the problem.

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Evo Lucas | 8 years ago
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Black cabs, where to begin? Basically they are the loonies of the taxi world, they’re almost a sort of Isis of London's cabs.

Its not just their driving its their views and their politics – if you are not with them then nothing is too bad for you.

https://youtu.be/DY4eS0j-TXY

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Bill H | 8 years ago
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The number of Black taxis is artificially restricted to circa 28 thousand and those who commit to it earn in the region of £60k a year. No matter how well you know the Knowledge you will not pass until a licence is available.
As a kid in East London I looked up to cabbies but they should change the rules. There should be a standardised test and if you pass the grade you should get the badge. Taking it away from the Police in the 90's was a start that fizzled out.
Allow the market to decide how many licenced cabbies work not restrict it to 28,000.

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