Cycling UK Forum

The rumour amoungst the trade (I'm a London Cabbie and club rider) is that the London Minicab lobby (Addison Lee) are asking TFL to consider allowing 55'000 pretend taxis into the capitals Bus Lanes.

Just one for your information at the moment as I know there are a few campaigners on here.

London cabs and minicabs both serve the public as a means of transport - even if the ordinary member of the public can scarcely afford either. Why should one be allowed into the bus lanes and not the other. It's like saying that solo bikes can use cycle lanes but not tandems or recumbents.

Give yourself a shake Greig - frightened of the competition?

mw3230 wrote:London cabs and minicabs both serve the public as a means of transport - even if the ordinary member of the public can scarcely afford either. Why should one be allowed into the bus lanes and not the other. It's like saying that solo bikes can use cycle lanes but not tandems or recumbents.

Give yourself a shake Greig - frightened of the competition?

Surely the point is that cyclists will be riding in bus lanes with even more motor vehicles, so more risk and more filtering and such?

I'm sure not too many would disagree that an empty bus lane makes a good cycle lane.

mw3230 wrote:London cabs and minicabs both serve the public as a means of transport - even if the ordinary member of the public can scarcely afford either. Why should one be allowed into the bus lanes and not the other. It's like saying that solo bikes can use cycle lanes but not tandems or recumbents.

Give yourself a shake Greig - frightened of the competition?

One section is trained, and has ridden around London for 3 years on two wheels learning their trade.

The other has little command of English, driving ability, and is then let loose on the streets of the capital with no training.

As for affordability, that depends if you consider 4 people going one stop on the tube which costs £16, or a Taxi for half of that?

Frightened of competition? Perhaps if they could actually offer some.

My concern is their crap driving, and the impending injuries that we will suffer whilst out on our bikes.

mw3230 wrote:London cabs and minicabs both serve the public as a means of transport - even if the ordinary member of the public can scarcely afford either. Why should one be allowed into the bus lanes and not the other. It's like saying that solo bikes can use cycle lanes but not tandems or recumbents.

If you ignore the tiny number of privately owned ones on the roads buses and hansom cabs are distinctive vehicles. Minicabs are cars, and are distinguished from ordinary cars only by a clip on id plate. There have been attempts to require a distinctive paint job on the grounds that it would make it easier to distinguish a genuine mini cab from outright cowboys, or perverts trying to pick up a woman at chucking out time, but they have been successfully resisted.
Let mini cabs into bus lanes and Tom, Dick and Auntie Nell will be in there the next day, confident that they will get away with it. By Thursday you'll be able to buy fake id plates on the local market - "Just for a laugh, Officer..."

If you start letting other stuff into the lane, eventually it will be "Everything except Cars", and you will have a new "Bus Only" lane, which will then include bicycles and taxis, then motorcycles and then everything else except cars, soon we will have car organisations lobbying for more car lanes around the country which are separated from the other menaces on the road that confuse and baffle them thus it must be dangerous.


@Greig
Would be nice if the black cab drivers could have taken more note from their experience on two wheels also.

Hi Dr.

As I've said before, you get clowns in every road using community.

I'd rather hope as licensed Taxi drivers in London tend to do it as a career, opposed to an in between jobs number, they would value their living and not jepordise it over bust ups with cyclists or other road users.

As a Cyclist and a Cabbie, I see it daily, and I'm sure any Cycling Bus Driver will profer his opinion too.

My only real bad experiences tend to relate to couriers and their suicidal riding. Fixed, minus any brakes etc.

Don't get me as some hater of Mini Cabs, I actually find it unfair for the other comments to go on about all of these drivers as being foreigners, although it might be high in some places.

I just think the more and more people that get into this area, the more pointless it becomes, hence my slightly sarcastic babbling that wasn't meant to make sense.

thanks si.

back to the OP. i can't see how any cars should be allowed in bus lanes - and if it's because they're carrying people that are paying for the service, like a bus does, then all cars that do so should be allowed in. a position that allows black cabs but not minicabs is protectionism, pure and simple, and dis-competitive advantages in a free market is bad for the consumer (whatever colour of taxi they're in).
my preferred regulation would be that neither is allowed in, which would be good for those on buses and bikes, as that is the very idea of a bus lane.

I agree with Hubbers. there does seem to be some general unthought-though opinion amongst some that taxis, be they black cabs or private, are public transport and thus save on congestion and emissions. In reality the opposite is true - to use a taxi more mileage is put on the clock than a private car.

A car goes from the parking space at home to (for instance) the parking space at work and later does the same journey in reverse. A taxi, on the other hand, goes from the rank/centre/last job to the fare's home, then to destination, then back to the rank/centre/next job for each trip - thus adding extra miles, extra congestion, and extra pollution. If anything taxis should face even more restrictions.

The bus lanes around Speke airport allow taxi's of all flavours.
Some of the worse examples of overtaking occur in them too! And not just by private cabs, the black cabs are just as bad. I wouldn't mind but the roads are very quiet, there's no excuse not to move over into the other lane (particularly as I tend to ride primary in bus lanes).

Based on my experience I don't think cab drivers deserve the right to use them...

Alas, our friendly cabbie didn't like the fact that he was asked not to include potentially racist abuse in his posts and left the building in a fit of peak, taking his ball with him and leaving only a PM of abuse and complaint that would sit well in the green ink letters pages of certain right wing tabloids .

Thus, having sworn never to grace us with his presence again, everyone should please note that you probably won't get any more discussion on the subject from him.

I should reiterate that my first post did not accuse him of being racist, it merely pointed out that some of his comments could have been interpreted that way and that it was likely that such an interpretation would sidetrack the thread from the issue that he wanted to discuss. I even pointed this out via PM and invited him amend the post himself before any replies were made. He refused, the thread did pan out as I thought that it might, and the original subject got lost as a discussion of racism started.... until I trimmed it down to get it back on subject. I guess that there is just no helping some people.

But the thing I wonder is this - people obviously come onto the forum because they find it of benefit - either informative or entertaining. So, why, I often wonder do they get such a cob on when such a minor alteration is made to a post and it's all explained to them in friendly and polite terms, and why do they think that them withdrawing from the forum is going to hurt us more than them (when they are only here for their own benefit anyway)?

Anyhoo, I digress (one of those mornings), back to the subject of taxis in bus lanes if anyone has anything further to add?

I'm not a great fan of cab or minicab drivers as I believe that as a population of road users their sudden turns, stopping and cutting into any empty space regardless of others adds to the general frustration of city driving and cycling. The original post did mention the London company of Addison Lee which seem to me to be a smart and professional outfit which, incidentally, has sponsored a lot of those cigarette end bins affixed to buildings in the centre of London. Can't comment on the ethnicity of their personnel and I'm sure it doesn't matter a jot.

The professional jealousy of the London cabbie should not be the sole, or even a major, determinant of transport policy

Si wrote:back to the subject of taxis in bus lanes if anyone has anything further to add?

your moderation was, as ever, spot on the fine line between draconian and doing nothing. it seems odd to me that a taxi driver who feels threatened by the competition of immigrants who possibly work harder and for less should come to the CTC forum for some sympathy.

as for your arguments about taxis causing more pollution, i'm not so sure. if i've already got a car, then for me to use a taxi to take me a few miles is indeed a nonsense. but for a substantial number of car-less people who mainly walk about town or get on a bus, then the once weekly trip from the supermarket with heavy bags or from argos with a bookcase by taxi seems to make sense. without the option of paying c.£5er for these odd journeys, they may be tempted to get a motorcar. and once they've taxed, insured and lost the depreciation on it, the mentality goes that they may as well use it every day. it's car sharing by a different name.