Witnessed this morning – cyclist going uphill through Green light, Taxi turns right, across her path knocking her down, then driver gets out and says “but it was a Green light, what are you doing?” I step in and point out the cyclist had Right of Way. She seemed ok and I gave her my details etc but two things stood out.

1 – the Taxi was not going that fast but sent the woman flying up into the air.
2 – everyone else just stood about, I had to cross from the other side past a group of people to get to her.

Have reported it to City Licencing.

but it was a Green light, what are you doing?”

Amd that about sums up the state of many people’s driving ability and knowledge. If a ‘professional’ driver is that ignorant of the rules no wonder others drive so badly. Compulsory testing every 5 years minimum is needed now.

If a ‘professional’ driver is that ignorant of the rules

Taxi drivers may be professional, but they’re not in the upper echelon of drivers IMO. Often angry, too often distracted, always thinking about cash vs time.

Arguing for compulsory testing every 5 years because of a bellend of a taxi driver is overkill, surely?

Glad the cyclist in question looked ok, could of been nasty.

but it was a Green light, what are you doing?”

I’ve similar incidences at roundabouts where i’ve come through and had people on my left complain when I’ve had right of way. One guy (who was obviously very shaken up at nearly hitting me) managed to a) say that he could of killed me (and make it sounds like it would of been my fault) and b.) Say that I should of been looking and should of stopped. Erm, nope. I was looking which is why you didn’t hit me and its my right of way.

Not sure how much you can really do though when someone decides to turn across you at a junction though 🙁

but it was a Green light, what are you doing?”

Sadly this bit did not surpise me, I saw the driver sit in her seat shaking her head as if they couldn’t understand, after I pointed out that she was in the wrong she did apologise.

Also report it to the police as a fail to stop incident, they will then go round and have a word to the driver,and hopefully take him to court, points on his licence, and press and media publicity, all help in the attitude some drivers have at not seeing cyclists.

Probably worth bearing in mind that a fat lot of good being right will do you when you’re wedged under someone’s front bumper.

Taxi drivers may be professional, but they’re not in the upper echelon of drivers IMO

Minicab drivers as a rashly generalised demographic are about the worst drivers out there, IME. A lot of the ones near me have a flagrant disregard for anyone else on the road.

I’ve had three near misses in two years whilst commuting… two were caused by taxis.

One U-turned right in front of me. When I got off the floor and waggled a disapproving finger at him, he rolled down the window and yelled “wear something brighter, you ****ing crazy ****er.”

The other guy who almost took me out on a roundabout just drove off whilst flipping me the bird. 😯

camo16 – Member

Arguing for compulsory testing every 5 years because of a bellend of a taxi driver is overkill, surely?

perhaps, but 20,000 people are killed or seriously injured on the roads every year.

twenty.

thousand.

Arguing for compulsory testing every 5 years because of a bellend of a taxi driver is overkill, surely?

Not really. Every day I see stuff that would be an automatic fail on a driving test from obviously experienced drivers who have become complacent or are too lazy to look/drive properly. Sounds like a great idea to me.

I know, ahwiles…

Is it a lack of skill that’s causing these accidents, or particular driver error/anger/fatigue/refusal to be arsed to look for hazards on a particular day?

Let’s face it, almost all taxi drivers would pass their five-yearly tests… but would they be any safer on the roads?

I’ve had some clown overtake me by going up a parallel exit road (i.e. wrong way up a short 1 way st) whilst I was riding up the entry road (they then merge into a single two way lane, its the entry into a pier) carve me up. When he stopped following my booting of his rear wing, he claimed I should have given way to him!
Some people have absolutely NO idea of the rules of the road whatsoever.

cyclist going uphill through Green light, Taxi turns right, across her path knocking her down, then driver gets out and says “but it was a Green light, what are you doing?”

No idea of the road layout, perhaps the taxi driver had a green arrow and assumed cyclist must have been on green (see this sometimes, junctions with odd light settings due to crossing lanes).

@stato No filter on this junction just a 4 way crossing, taxi and cyclist coming from opposite directions and both on Green – cyclist going straight through (therefore had RoW) taxi turning right.

Funnily enough I ended up crashing into the rear ¾ of a taxi last night on my way home. He kindly reversed off the path and then pulled forward blocking the cycle lane whilst waiting for someone in the traffic queue to let him in. I couldn’t stop or swerve in time and ploughed into it. He wasn’t best pleased, the woman in queuing traffic was a bit confused and asked me outright if I just hadn’t seen him, and the taxi driver wouldn’t accept he was in a cycle lane even when we stood looking at the paint on the floor.

Is it a lack of skill that’s causing these accidents, or particular driver error/anger/fatigue/refusal to be arsed to look for hazards on a particular day?

In my view it’s a combination of downright ignorance of the rules combined with ignoring them when people feel like it. I think former could be picked up with written or oral tests and the latter by a driving assessment, everybody will try to drive more appropriately on the tests but those that drive like complete **** will still drive badly when trying to drive well compared to the better drivers.

The objective of re-assessments should not be another ‘how to go through the mechanical motions of making a car move about’, but about roadcraft training. How do people treat other road users, what bad habits have they picked up, what rules are they no longer following. It should be a re-affirmation of what constitutes good driving.

I get that, but I reckon 99% of taxi drivers would pass a re-assessment and then drive as badly as they did before.

It’s a nice idea, but I have no faith that these short, sharp shocks of (re)education would result in more careful, aware driving amongst the many idiot drivers out there.

I don’t reckon they would, even driving well (by their standards) would be below average. If you don’t know how to drive properly (or have forgotten) you won’t be able to get throught the test. As samuri says it’s reviewing someone’s overall roadcraft that is important.

I’ve been hospitalised for a few months due to an interface with a taxi. He wasn’t at fault to be fair.

However I fly commercially as aircrew. I am subject to endless annual tests checks and exams to prove my competency. If the taxi driver is taking fare-paying public and is responsible for their safety, then they should have suitable checking.

I think lifetime bans should be issued more willingly though. There are too many who’ve proven their inability to drive safely. I was on the motorway last night and lost count of middle lane mongs and idiots who can’t work out whether its foggy or not. I don’t really want to share the road with these morons and I guess most drivers who have any concerns about their safety don’t either. The fact that they can’t cope on a quiet motorway makes me shudder to think how they perform on a normal day!

“But it’s my right to drive” I hear people say. Aside the false notion of ‘human rights’, you should lose your ‘right’ should you prove to be a danger to others.

Maybe so, SJ.

My outlook is that most of these jokers know how to drive properly, but don’t choose to do so on a daily basis. Because, in the case of taxi drivers, they have the triple whammy of destruction: anger, distraction and money/time concerns. De-whammy them and I reckon most would operate more than competently in a test environment.

The only solution, IME (and I realise that this is utopian musing) is to keep all the road travel types (walkers, cyclists and car/truck/buses) as separate as possible.

I’d disagree. I reckon some intelligent, well thought out education that doesn’t treat the driver like an idiot but lays down clear evidence that good driving produces better roads would work wonders for the majority of people. What you’re also doing then is integrating well educated drivers in with the cores of bad drivers (wherever that may be) and by peer pressure they are encouraged to change their habits.

Maybe backed up by a bullet to the kneecap if they refuse to change.

Maybe backed up by a bullet to the kneecap if they refuse to change.

Now we’re talking sense!

But if they’ve proven they’re a danger, what on earth reason is there for allowing them to continue to drive? None.

psycometric testing.

On the drive to work this morning I followed an old bloke bimbling up an otherwise clear, wide road at about 15mph. I squirted past him as soon as traffic islands allowed; looked like he’d died about six months ago and just hadn’t realised. He was leaning forward in what was presumably a vain attempt to see what was in front of him, a task complicated by the fact that he appeared to be peering at the road from underneath the steering wheel.

Retests wouldn’t catch those who deliberately drive like simians, but it’d be a good start in filtering out the medically blind.

Retests wouldn’t catch those who deliberately drive like simians, but it’d be a good start in filtering out the medically blind.

Yeah, okay.

In most cases, I think bad, thoughtless driving is a choice not the result of educational deficiency. IME, loads of incidents are caused by outside forces – the driver’s late, ratty or pissed; the driver hates cyclists and wants to teach one a lesson; the driver’s got his Justin Bieber on so loud he’s not paying attention…

All of which doesn’t argue against re-assessment, but I think does lessen its validity.

Maybe the solution is to oblige all taxi drivers to spend one day each month riding around the toughest streets in the city centres… 😉

OP, this is on my commute home and I’ve also been driven at by taxis turning right down to waverley, the fact that you are going uphill slowly seems to make them really angry and have a pop at you.

Please please report this to the police and the taxi licensing body through the council website. It is also crucial that the cyclist reports it. When you report it, it is actually the police who deal with the case and speak to the taxi driver, rather than the council.

I reported a taxi that drove at a girl on a bike and then started shouting at her, but because she didn’t report it herself, the police couldn’t take any action. They did speak to the driver though so hopefully he might have learnt he can’t hide from the law.

Well, I had a ” Taxi: heaven and hell” commute last Thursday in Edinburgh…

Usual mayhem on the Corstorphine Road – getting cut up by black cabs and dozy commuting idiots, being overtaken about 100yds before the red light at Western Corner only to go into the ASL infront of them, Taxi not looking when turning right out onto the Corstorphine Rd and me having to do emergency stop. The usual. I was raging and effing about Taxi drivers etc… even by the time I turned onto the Water of Leith!

Coming out of Belford Road onto Queensferry St is mostly a nightmare – people driving across Dean Bridge don’t let anyone turning right out or look 10 yards ahead to see the Red light and realise I will pass them into the ASL anyway….

BUT! The first vehicle coming across Dean Bridge on that morning was a Black Cab and he waved me straight out!! I nearly passed out! I thanked him, smiled and went on my way to work.

Moral of the story: yes there are b&llend Taxi drivers, possibly even a large proportion of them, but there are some nice, sensible ones too.

People drive with their blinkers on 90% of the time, we all do it occasionally, even on our bikes!

People drive with their blinkers on 90% of the time, we all do it occasionally, even on our bikes!

This.

Muchos good sense.

Maybe backed up by a bullet to the kneecap back of the neck if they refuse to change. Don’t want to waste health resources on people who don’t look out for fellow citizens.

Only one incident with a Taxi driver, who threw out a full disposable coffee cup in front of the cyclist in front of me. It just missed her, and she was unaware it had happened. Taxi driver wasnt too happy when I chucked the still half full cup hottish coffee back through the window.
He reported the incident to the police, denying that the container was his. I had already done so, and the police fortunatley had CCTV coverage of the incident all ready and waiting for him.

He lost his job, and is now to be seen riding around as a postie!

perhaps, but 20,000 people are killed or seriously injured on the roads every year.

twenty.

thousand.

Of course, 20,000 is 20,000 too many, but this number isn’t that high in relative terms.

There are ~60,000,000 in this country and so 20,000 serious injuries and fatalities works out to be about a 1 in 3000 chance of this happening to you in any particular year. Considering our major form of transport is a human controlled, large metallic vehicle that can do 100mph+ then I don’t think this figure is outrageous.

Could be better of course, but not bad and getting better.

I hope the lady in question is ok and not put of cycling by this incident. The taxi driver is clearly in the wrong here and his thinking is very skewed. Woudn’t want to start generalising about all taxi drivers at this point…

Magic Bus drivers in Manchester though – there’s a different story! Ha!

We’ve had the discussion on here before about how unreliable those stats are and how they are collected. Also, why group fatalities and injuries? It just makes a bigger, more sensational number to scare everyone with. Don’t fall for it.

Not to say death and injury are not serious, just don’t fall for the hyperbole.

A taxi driver pulled out on me once and I screamed and wobbled.
I was climbing a steep hill at the time. When I finished the climb and got round a bend, the driver was waiting for me.
With a cab full of grown men, he wound down the window and shouted how could I have missed you with a mouth as big as yours you stupid cow.
I didn’t have time to take note of reg or taxi plate as was shaking so much. Gosh He must have felt like a big bloke talking to a cyclist like that in front of all his mates – not.

Magic Bus drivers in Manchester though – there’s a different story! Ha!

Yup, and they used to be worse. There was at least one company got shut down when I lived there due to the standard of their buses and their drivers. Scary stuff. One of the main reasons I stopped cycling into Uni.

project – Member
Also report it to the police as a fail to stop incident, they will then go round and have a word to the driver,and hopefully take him to court, points on his licence, and press and media publicity, all help in the attitude some drivers have at not seeing cyclists.

Nothing in the OP suggests that the driver failed to stop, quite the opposite. Are you suggesting that the OP should give a misleading statement to the police and potentially the courts (failing to stop is not a fixed penalty matter) .

There was at least one company got shut down when I lived there due to the standard of their buses and their drivers.

Are you thinking of UK North Buses by any chance?

Once got on one driven by a Rasta (purely illustrative description, not generalising, pedants of STW) smoking a massive joint, and the whole bus smelt of weed.

Still got on – they were 10p cheaper than Finglands.

Are you thinking of UK North Buses by any chance?

Might of been, can’t quite remember which one, but they were cheaper and a lot sketchier. Do miss the days of week long passes for £3.50

I’ve had a few near misses in my time, I always thought though, that if I was ever actually bumped by a car, that I would go down like a sack of spuds and not get up until the ambulance arrived, causing a lot of hoo haa to the driver, who would have to stop and wait, probably for the police to arrive, then get the mandatory breathe test etc etc, or is that going too far. The driver might think twice before pulling out again without looking.