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Video: London cabbie cuts in front of cyclist - then launches four-letter rant at him
A London cyclist has filmed the moment a taxi clipped another rider as the cab driver tried to squeeze past another rider at Piccadilly Circus.
The footage, which contains some very strong language, was shot on Monday morning by Ross Holdsworth, and begins with him riding up Lower Regent Street towards the busy junction.
At the traffic lights by the Statue of Eros, the rider in front moves off, with the cab driver darting up the inside and making contact with the handlebars of the bike.
The right-hand lane of three that the taxi was occupying at the traffic lights is clearly marked ahead of the junction as being for Shaftesbury Avenue and Trafalgar Square – the exit from the junction the driver is headed towards.
While the road layout means he has to swing across to the left to join the traffic queueing there, that doesn’t excuse trying to squeeze in front of the cyclist, nor the taxi driver’s behaviour afterwards as he gets out of his vehicle and launches a rant at the rider.
“I didn’t drive into no-one, I’m coming up here,” says the cabbie. “You hit me f*cking cab. Pull over there, we’ll call the police.”
But Ross, the cyclist filming says, “It’s alright, I’ve got a camera, mate,” to which the taxi driver shouts in reply, “I’ve got a camera in here. I ain’t cut in front of nobody.”
Challenged that "You drove into him," he responds, "I didn't drive into anyone."
But Ross told road.cc "He absolutely clipped his bars," adding that he believes the manoeuvre was “obviously deliberate” and described it as “scare tactics designed to keep riders off the road.”
The footage comes at a time when West Midlands Police’s campaign to target drivers who have passed cyclists too closely by prosecuting them based on third party video evidence has been receiving national attention, with calls from cycle campaigners around the country for their local forces to follow suit.
As of Friday, West Midlands Police have so far prosecuted 78 motorists under the initiative. North Wales Police is undertaking a similar campaign, as are officers in the London Borough of Camden.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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54 comments
Cyclist, car driver and LGV (bin wagon) driver here. It always perplexes me as to how far ahead most drivers think they will get when indulging in such behaviour. Especially in inner cities when you have to stop at the next set of lights.They cause more gridlock by blocking yellow boxes and junctions than anything else . The world extends further than the end of your bonnet.
The cabbie obviously f#cked up.
He didn't deliberatly clip the cyclist.
He tried to squeeze through, and when he clipped the cyclist, decided the best way to argue his way out of it, was to aggressively blame the cyclist.
I hope the police got involved. The cabbie wouldn't have a little leg to stand on.
I have just visited a cycle-to-work workshop and the presenter mentioned that the cyclist needs to be in similar situations in the middle of the lane. It is called primary position I think. You basically behave like a car. I am both cyclist and driver. We are sharing the road. I did not read all comments or the text, so take it with pinch of salt. I think most of us do this mistake that we are afraid to get into the primary position as it slows the traffic behind us. I did not see any shoulder checks of the recording cyclist despite changing lanes etc. which could have caused him injury if someone from behind, like a fast scooter or else overtakes. I heard RSA.ie has good videos about cycle-safety. All the best! Cycle safe.
Am I the only one thinking why was the taxi driver in such a hurry to get to the back of a queue of stationary traffic? Traffic that still isn't moving 30 seconds after the contact with the cyclist.... the image shows the seconds just before the contact, the traffic (the black and white cars in the centre of the picture) don't start to move until 1:29 in the video
Here is what I think happened. Taxi driver is wanting to continue on Regent Street . He comes across the 2 queues of stationary traffic, and an empty lane marked Trafalgar Square. He decides that if he goes down the empty lane and gets a good start he can cut across the lanes of traffic to continue on Regent Street, rather than follwing the road markings.
The cyclist filters through traffic and gets in front of taxi, with the camera cyclist getting alongside the taxi, thereby preventing him from cutting up the other traffic, but he then decides to drive like a lunatic and misjudges the timing of the maneuver and collects the cyclist as he tries it......
Taxi.jpg
Regarding the discussion of the absent ASL, there's one relevant highway code rule (with law to back it) that's worth mentioning, because it's so widely ignored.
It does apply to filtering, the Police do occasionally charge people for it.
I make no criticism of the cyclist in the video. There are plenty of cabbies jumping up and down making silly points, and just as many cyclists explaining how they avoid such situations thanks to their superior roadcraft (yawn).
I could follow just about any cyclist or motorist on a typical journey and catch them making minor mistakes (myself included). Both the law and the road infrastructure has to be forgiving of human failings, but the law should never forgive aggression.
Yeah this is where I'm at with this. No-one is perfect when it comes to riding on the road which is why I take sanctimony with large doses of salt. Sometimes I make mistakes, sometimes I take risks. But I never start fights. Never put anyone in danger. Can't afford to, I'm most likely to hurt myself.
When I'm driving, I'm super conscious of what I'm doing because my actions have far greater consequences. Only takes a touch of the accelerator to end someone's life. An act of aggression or stupidity in the car is a far different thing than an act of aggression or stupidity on the bicycle.
Things have to given appropriate weighting.
People have a tendency to be tribal, I get that, and it can frustrate people trying to with a central position. Thing is, center ground doesn't mean situations are weighed appropriately.
For anyone still interersted in this: the taxi driver started to attempt to pull left into the next lane over, not stay in the lane he was in. It's hard to see on the video, but that's what happened and I luckily noticed pretty quickly.
The reason I adopt that road position at that junction is due to the high volume of motorbikes around there, who could quite safely pass me on the right, combined with the fact that at that point, the lane is directed to shaftsbury avenue, but at the next set of lights (about 20 yards ahead), it is the lane to my left that is for shaftsbury and the lane the taxi driver is initially in, changes to being directed towards trafalgar square. After the event, the driver went up Sh Ave, i.e. he was trying to cut from the lane he was in, to the next lane to the left with complete disregard for my being there.
He also behaved like a complete twat afterwards.
I'm curious as to why you're curious. Cyclist's route is his business. Or maybe he's asking for trouble by riding in a busy area. Is that the sort of doublespeak you're used to getting away with?
Wrong tree. People should ride wherever they feel comfortable, and vehicle drivers should do everything to ensure they do feel comfortable. Curious in the same way I am when I see people cycling Euston/Marylebone Roads. Not questioning entitlement, just route decisions and speed/pleasure balance.
I think it was a very minor incident that I personally would have let go. Admittedly the driver was being assertive/defiant in jumping smartly way from the lights then overtaking with a close pass. and His state of mind was obvious by his immediate overreaction to the cyclist's mild remonstrations. Driver was having a bad day and was probably always going to lose his cool at something very trivial. No excuse for his foul language but that's a separate matter. His driving was nothing to get too hysterical about. He would not have made it on my 'C*nt of the day' list that day.
Of course, the cyclist he passed did nothing wrong and to his credit didn't overreact.
I can't offer any defence for my brethren here. Can't be much fun for someone who sees something like that as a provocation and reacts in that fashion. Lord knows what he does when a Prius cuts him up.
Couple of points:
He's broken #14: Don't get out of the cab for a row.
Don't take umbrage against Hailo, a valuable app when you're stuck. He has no connection to the livery on his cab. (Offer code 65991 for a tenner off, people)
Curious as to the cyclist's journey, and whether the always-clogged Piccadilly Circus is the best route.
I must admit I thought the whole point of ASLs was to avoid the issue the cyclist found himself in. They were bought in because to abide strictly to the rules increases the danger for the vulnerable road user getting hurt and the risk for the driver that they will end up with a charge of careless, because for sure as a driver you better make sure it's safe to move off ( it's not when you have cyclists beside you, you should wait for them to clear past you...).
The ASLs help,avoid all the conflict rubbish.
why on earth is there no ASL, also why do ASLs not allow mopeds and motorbikes? They presumably are allowed to filter traffic too so have similar issues to cyclists?
What a horrible wee jobbie of a man
...and not all English are baldies
just as much as not all baldies are English...
ScreenHunter_10 Oct. 26 22.32.gif
Is being 'a campaigner' considered bad now. Think I missed the memo on that one.
In my book it is when the actions of a cyclist are seen to be without blemish whatever they may be, and it's OK to over generalise about other road users whilst lambasting them for doing the same thing. YMMV as apparently also does a substantial and vocal minority on road.cc.
Cyclist weaved in and out of traffic and filtered to front of cab. Sensible? Probably not. Risk to other road users? SFA.
Cabbie (professional driver) then punishment passed in a 2 tonne vehicle and clipped the cyclist. That's not the same thing, or even in the same ball park.
Also illegal and created a situation where there was previously none with no real benefit to the rider. It aint' much, but it's dumb.
If by risk you mean direct danger to someone by, e.g. him colliding with a car, then no - of course not. This is a real nothing event and I wouldn't expect there to be much of an indirect effect, beyond what happened, but relying on your own direct risk assesment to decide whether to obey the rules of the road does appear to be somewhat arrogant.
He didn't clip him, and of course he was behaving like a twat. It's really not binary.
It's also standard-operating-proceedure for 90% of drivers 90% of the time (granted, also 90% of cyclists and pedestrians). When did a driver last obey speed limits, for example? Or stop at the stop line when a light turned amber?
I don't feel confident in my expertise or familiarity with that particular junction to analyise exactly what happened, but I really feel cynical about the nit-picking attempt to find small faults in every choice of the cyclist.
You get that after every incident and it always smells of people trying to prove their technical prowess and avoid the real point, which is that its almost always bad road-design (and bad driving culture, but that's probably unavoidable) that creates a situation where any tiny misjudgement can lead to potentially lethal danger.
When I read these kinds of over-analysis ('the cyclist was 6" too close to the centre of the road, he should have taken a path exactly on the edge of the door zone and if he can't calculate the width of a car door in his head to the nearest nanometer he shouldn't be on the road") it just makes me less inclined to cycle at all, as I can't be arsed becoming 'elite' in order to avoid getting squished.
Edit - not necessarily referring to fukawittribe specifically to in all the above.
I actually agree with you in this last bit - my point was that the cyclist breaks the law, then does something that is pretty much guaranteed to piss of the cabbie who then gives the cyclist no room and flies off into a pissy tantrum - but in the minds of some on here the cyclist is entirely in the right, apparently.
Firstly the cabbies reaction to the situation is poor. However.....
The cyclist does not stop behind the stop line (There is no Advance Stop Line at this junction for bikes).
The cab has been waiting correctly. The cyclist then crosses the stop line under a Red light and takes up a position in the lane that the cab occupies, but not directly in front of the cab. This probably annoyed the cabbie.
Everyone sets off (cyclist under Amber), followed seconds later by the cab, who is following the natural line of the road.
Don't be fooled by the apparent direction of the road and the curb line because the lane ahead to the right is no entry (It is solely for bus travelling south down from Shaftesbury Ave heading across to Piccadilly).
The cab is following the correct path and is not cutting across at all. The cyclist however has begun to traverse very slightly to the right, though you can not appreciate this from the cameras perspective.
The cabbie has gone through a tight gap, but he would not have envisaged the cyclist traverse which causes the gap to tapper as he passed.
As I said the cabbies reaction is poor, probably some frustration involved, but his lane discipline is fine.
This is a very poor junction.
I would also say that the comments on here about stereotype views of cabbies based on their appearance is pathetic and undermine attempts to create road harmony.
Oh dear.
How can your lane discipline be fine if it involves you pranging a more vulnerable road user you are squeezing past, from behind, far too closely?
'He would not have anticipated the cyclist traverse'?! Whether he was pissed off at the cyclist getting ahead of him or not, he was behind a bike, in his lane. The cyclist did not shoot a lazer beam out of his arse, turn into a many-headed beast, levitate or do anything else fairly unpredictable. If a professional driver can't anticipate a cyclist, who is already in his lane, being in his lane, he shouldn't really be driving for a living, should he?
A typically irrationally and confrontational response.... I really wonder why I bother!!
The easiest conclusion to draw is that you have no interest in any other road user group... And no, I have not got the time to research your previous 300+ postings to garner evidence to prove this point. However, 300+ posts suggests you may be a "campaigner".
As for lane discipline, are we saying that a vehicle and a cycle must not share the same lane abreast of one another? In which case I would question the legitimacy of cycles undertaking or overtaking vehicles at any time as invariably this is done whilst in the same lane (And rarely do I observe the cyclist allowing five foot of clearance {see the video in question for evidence of this}).
I just don't understand why there has to be such animosity, none of us are perfect road users 100℅ of the time.
I'm sure you want to hang and quarter me along with the cabbie in this video. I would just ask you to breath and take some perspective.
This was a punishment pass, at absolute best. By a London black cab driver.
And while we're going all ad hominem: you are a pompous tit with the road sense of a coked-up hedgehog, and you're logging in on other accounts to like your own posts.
[/quote]
This is a/the problem. There are thousands of ASLs at lights in London in similar situations. You'd expect them to be there. There's no prior warning that there will or won't be one - unlike road signs for motorists. Is the rider supposed to be clairvoyant and intuit somehow that this junction does not have an ASL, in the face of complicated manoeuvreing, when most do? So, once a rider has decided that filtering to the front is OK and then doesn't find an ASL, what's the safest thing for them to do? Yep, it's what they do. The cabbie does not appear to understand this, despite (presumably) millions of hours drivng around London streets among some of the highest cycling mode share in the UK . Neither do they give the rider time to sort themselves out. Not good. The rest of the video is hilarious.
nope the cab isnt waiting correctly, watch the video again,at a red light you are supposed to stop behind the line, more than half of the front wheel of that cab and the rest of the front of it,is beyond that line, its as much of a jumped red light,technically, as the cyclist, and Id probably also point out he should be using his handbrake as well, as I believe sitting in traffic with brake lights on causing undue dazzle, is also classed a traffic offence
Are you a defence lawyer for angry little men? No way in world was this odeous harpie in any way correct. And as for characterising taxi drivers, he's more like the Viz character, Cockney W*nker, than the actual Viz character himself.
Though presumably a magistrate would say "people don't like cabbies, and you are doing nothing to enhance their reputation".
I must admit that, being a rural bumpkin, I cannot understand how there are more accidents on that stretch of road. The chap cycling with the camera seems to flit about all over the road weaving left and right whenever it suits him, undertaking/overtaking, spins quickly up very tight spaces past traffic where anything could happen.
The cyclist involved in the incident could easily have hung back and positioned himself correctly and yet he crosses the stop line when the TFL is still red and then puts himself into a very vulnerable position and on a narrow lane...and gets clipped by a cabbie. Yes, the cabbie didn't need to do that so is at fault...but it appears that there are quite a few cyclists in London who use the road like one big video game and seem to be in as much rush as the drivers to get somewhere.
I partly agree, but the traffic moves so slowly that there's a lot more space than it appears from camera angles.
As for the cyclist, he had no reason to believe the taxi was going anywhere other than straight on. At no point does the cabbie signal. Any reasonable person would also assume that the taxi was going to follow the road off to the right.
I believe you are referring to filtering and changing lane? It's not just in cities that this is allowed. It's the cabbie that has forced the cyclist into a very vulnerable position, the lane doesn't appear narrow to me.
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