Taxis, buses, schoolkids

[Cudzoziemiec]

Something that surprised me about my son's (and lots of other kids') route to school: he or rather they – as he always walks in a group of friends, they is more accurate – cross a busy but unclassified road, what you might call a local distributor road, at an island on one of the horizontal arms of a T-junction. There's no zebra or anything, just an island, and he was complaining how they have to run across because there are no gaps in the traffic long enough to walk across (even though it's only one half of a not very wide road) and "Only the taxi drivers and buses stop." I was surprised at the taxi drivers (not the bus drivers) but thinking about it, I've seen them do this; and they might be said to have some incentive in that some of them might be taking kids to school and many of them live locally, probably have children there themselves.

[Whitedown Man]

My anecdata re. (London) taxi drivers is that they are the most verbally abusive driver tribe when it comes  to cyclists (by some margin) but also the most courteous and considerate in terms of 'sharing road space'. Give me streets filled with black cabs rather than WVM, boy racers or skip trucks any day of the week.

[starkj73]

Last night as I was exiting a busy, poorly lit roundabout, I saw a couple trying to cross.

When there was a gap, the father had to run across the road with a small child in his arms.

Seems sad that cars are seen as more important than pedestrians.

Not happy with 'owning' the roads, drivers want to park their cars on footpaths.

[Kim]

My anecdata re. (London) taxi drivers is that they are the most verbally abusive driver tribe when it comes  to cyclists (by some margin) but also the most courteous and considerate in terms of 'sharing road space'. Give me streets filled with black cabs rather than WVM, boy racers or skip trucks any day of the week.

I'm not sure if I've ever had verbal abuse for being a cyclist from a taxi driver; it's usually van drivers or boy racers.  Outside of London, taxi drivers are the close pass specialists, thobut.

I find that bus and HGV drivers are the most consistently courteous towards cyclists.

I've not really thought about specific attitudes to pedestrians, beyond not expecting drivers of certain makes (hot hatchbacks, Audi, BMW) to give way.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think the point is probably not drivers of different vehicles so much as drivers with different expectations and priorities. Taxi drivers know that a few seconds of courtesy in a traffic jam isn't going to cost them anything; they'll soon catch up with the queue again. Plus it looks good to their passengers (maybe) and it would definitely be a career-damaging event to hit a kid. Especially if it's the neighbour's child! The same applies to bus drivers, probably more so. And driving is just what they do, they're already at work; no rush, unlike the commuters hurrying to not be late for the boss.

[Adnepos]

...The same applies to bus drivers, probably more so. And driving is just what they do, they're already at work; no rush, unlike the commuters hurrying to not be late for the boss...

As a generality, I find professional drivers (bus-taxi) in the middle of Cambridge and Oxford are 'close-pass specialists'. Away from the town centre, professional drivers of all flavours tend to be more considerate than other drivers of motor vehicles.

[Si]

I find taxi drivers around here show extremes of behaviour - they tend to be really good or really bad.  It's also strange that it doesn't seem to matter who they encounter: when doing bikeability with a gaggle of kids following on even those drivers notorious for bad behaviour improve a bit*, apart from taxi drivers who continue to act as they would to anyone else, be that good or bad.

*which is really annoying: if you are ever driving and you meet a bunch of kids doing bikeability please don't cede your priority at junctions!  It's very kind of you to do so but the kids are meant to be learning real world cycling where it's very rare that a driver who has priority will stop and let the cyclist go first - plus it confuses the kids!