Addison Lee chairman provokes controversy with his views on London cyclist deaths

Oops, hat should read green tomatoe cars!!

My wife works on the busy trading floor of a German bank, which if I'm correct is the cities largest employer.
She also has a 14 year old son and a husband who are regular cyclists.
After John Griffin's recent buslane and cyclist rants, she will not be booking Ad Lee in the future and will be persuading colleagues likewise.
Hopefully word will spread.

The stuff about cyclists, however offensive, is just taxi-driver-done-well bluster. The bus lane thing is altogether nore serious.

TfL has made it clear that they regard deliberatel infringement of bus lanes as a criminal matter and will prosecute it as such. In "instructing" his drivers to use bus lanes he is suborning them to commit a criminal offence. Offering to pay their fines is insufficient remedy, and the instruction is isetlf unlawful and oppressive to his staff.

Further, the receipt and processing of the fares paid by customers involved in the bus lane infringements is at least arguably an offence of money laundering under the Anti-Money Laundering regs and the proceeds of Crime Act. Any firm which needs to maintain a clean status in regard to meny laundering, ie any bank, insurance company, law or accounting firm, and many others, should take not of that and indicate to Mr Griffin that if he persists, they will hav eno alternative but to remove their business.

If I was part of anonymous I would be tempted to suggest they take down their website. Still if everyone in lcc and all those who look at this page were to email customerrelations [at] addisonlee.com, and do so on a weekly basis demanding that he change his tune and issue a public apology, it might cause them a bit of a headache?

Addison Lee vehicles are often very poorly driven. It's interesting that the boss takes such an aggressive attitude to cyclists. It'd be good if Alan Sugar or Paul Smith, both well known as avid cyclists, took him to task. I doubt either would mince their words. I don't like using Addison Lee as the vehicles are badly driven, this makes me even more likely to use other firms.

Further, the receipt and processing of the fares paid by customers involved in the bus lane infringements is at least arguably an offence of money laundering under the Anti-Money Laundering regs and the proceeds of Crime Act. Any firm which needs to maintain a clean status in regard to meny laundering, ie any bank, insurance company, law or accounting firm, and many others, should take not of that and indicate to Mr Griffin that if he persists, they will hav eno alternative but to remove their business.

You bugger! I am a Lawyer and I never considered that possibility. Could be right!

Apart from anything else, his views are based on a simple misconception. I pointed out in a recent blogpost - http://invisiblevisibleman.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/it-may-be-fun-but-is-c... - that Transport for London research attributes blame for around three-quarters of bike-vehicle accidents to the driver, not the cyclist. And that's based on figures from the not-very-bike-friendly Metropolitan Police.

Addison Lee vehicles have struck me since the company's inception as being particularly poorly driven. I am now happy to call for people to boycott them.

This reminds me of cycling in Cornwall over the Easter break, lovely quiet roads, cars giving you plenty space, and the first and last car to screech past and cut in with an inch of space . . . yes you guessed it, an Addison lee stickered taxi!

Disdain for cyclists knows no boundaries for those guys, its a deeply engrained ethos.

I've just checked whether my company uses Addison Lee at all. I've urged them to stop doing so if they do.

Well written piece Simon. Surely there is some legal issue with his inciting people (I use the term loosely having long seen the skill level of his drivers, Neanderthals is probably nearer) to break the law? Quite obviously a narrow minded idiot looking for publicity to which end I hope it backfires on him and AL.

Apart from that I passed my cycling proficiency test when I was younger so I am trained

I find it hard to understand why people like this speak of cyclists like a separate species.

Part of the process of becoming a qualified driver should involve at least one lesson on a bike in town traffic.

Their account is now under review in my company and I suspect very shortly also at a group level. Not surprising, seeing as some of the people who run it are regular cyclists.

Emailed my thoughts to the company....doubt they'll get read. Just amazes me that anyone can hold such arrogant and ill educated views. He needs to get his own house in order and look at his drivers before making daft statements liike that. Tw@!

This is what really gets me about this:

"Should a motorist fail to observe a granny wobbling to avoid a pothole or a rain drain, then he is guilty of failing to anticipate that this was somebody on her maiden voyage into the abyss."

A good motorist should leave sufficient space when overtaking to allow for this kind of unexpected maneuvre. If a vehicle overtakes another vehicle, it does so by temporarily moving into the outside lane or the other carriageway. Why should they not do the same when overtaking a cyclist just because the cyclist has a narrower profile? A rain drain is about 30 centimetres wide for crying out loud! If you are close enough to hit someone avoiding one of these then you are TOO CLOSE!

The fact is that the majority of motorists do indeed overtake "wide", but if they do hit a wobbling "granny" then it is their fault for not driving carefully and they should be punished.

The problem we will now have is that there will be more vehicles in the bus lane that have just enough space to get between cyclists and a lane of congested traffic, which will lead to more accidents. I recommend all cyclists cycle directly in the middle of the bus lane from now on; if AL taxis want to overtake they can rejoin the normal traffic.

The irony of his "If you want to join our gang, get trained and pay up", when that's exactly what cab drivers are saying to him re: bus lanes is unfathomable.

You may also want to email customerrelations [at] addisonlee.com and give them your thoughts. I'm sure they will love having their email blocked with endless rants.

My company spends upward of £8K per month on AL cabs. We have now switched to another supplier. While his thoughts on training cyclists make sense, the tone and intent of his words is clear and reflected in the sub-standard driving that a number of his drivers display.

John Griffin, wave good bye to £100K a year.

I hope many follow suit. Idiot.

Well Mr Griffin, you might do well to realise that many of your corporate customers are also cyclists.

Whilst I do agree that there are some cyclists who simply aren't skilled enough to ride on London's busy roads and would do well to practice elsewhere first, your comments smack of Mr Toad at a time when we need to encourage more people to cycle. Not have them quaking in their saddles worried about one of your black beasts knocking them off because they now share the cycle / bus lane.

Simple protest from me.... you can kiss our account goodbye. We might only spend £2k a year with your company but if 1,000 other small London firms like ours make the same decision, you'll soon take note.

Hey everyone, long time cyclist, first time poster.

I live in London, I have a car that I use once a month for visiting family up north and I have a bicycle which I use to get to work every day. While the chap from AL is clearly of a genetic relation to the chap from Ryanair, I agree with the bottom line of the article which is "As more and more cyclists start to use the roads for the first time, they should have some training on the rules of the road."

As a cyclist through London every day, I've lost count of the number of times I've nearly been knocked off my bike. I'm fairly certain that had I not had countless driving lessons (and cycling proficiency lessons) which taught me how junctions work and how to recognise, anticipate and avoid hazards and make correct observations before manoeuvres, then I'd probably have landed in hospital a couple of times, and come off my bike a few more.

Having also driven through London several times, the idiots on the road aren't (usually) actively picking on cyclists, they're just idiots. Spotting a car up ahead that's been waiting to turn right and is getting impatient to the point that they might make a break for it ahead of you is just as important to a cyclist as it is to another driver. Same with learning to look over your shoulder and indicate before changing lanes, which is especially important when avoiding a stopped bus in a bus lane in London.

If you're in a car and you bump another driver at a junction then it's usually superficial damage. If you're a cyclist and the same accident happens then it can be fatal. All the more reason why we should have some training.

Nice one Simon.

The man's a buffoon! His is a very oddly written article. Loving the laughably hysterical tone ("cyclists are *throwing* themselves...", "they *leap* onto a vehicle...", "Maiden voyage into the abyss"...how old is this bloke?)

He's managed to take an issue that probably deserves some considered airtime (whether novice cyclists are wise to brave the streets of London before they've learned the necessary roadcraft etc) and transform it with his emotive, badly chosen words into something that will only serve to widen the rift between motorists and cyclists - and probably harm his own business in the process.

Then there's his coup de grace: “It is time for us to say to cyclists, ‘You want to join our gang, get trained and pay up’.” Which gang's that then you plum? Ill-informed attention whores R us? No thanks.

The company I work for has agreed to no longer use Addison Lee and are switching to Green Tomatoes.

Hey Lex, welcome to the forum. I don't think anyone is objecting to the idea of better training for any/all road users, it's more the rest of his rant and the tone which have riled people.

Wasn’t there some other older fellow, not too many years ago, that sang a song about “you wanna be in my/our gang”?