OK, It's Friday - light the blue touch paper, retreat ...

Beasty

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 this was somebody on her maiden voyage into the abyss.

Discuss

Hungrycol

Nice one Beasty!

I've been training on my bike since I was 4 years old. How long has their bus drivers been training for? :P

Beasty

It's actually a private taxi firm, who's drivers probably have very little training beyond the basic driving test. HGV and Bus drivers are required to have specialist licences which will have much more a of a safety focus when the test is taken

He has many large corporate clients - hopefully the publicity he's generating will do no end of damage to his business

Hungrycol

I dunno, there's a LOT of people who think like him...

ednwireland

Beasty wrote: »

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 this was somebody on her maiden voyage into the abyss.

errr yes

buffalo

Sounds like a mini-cab version of Michael O'Leary. Courts controversy to get more publicity. Can we just ignore him?

DirkVoodoo

Hungrycol wrote: »

I dunno, there's a LOT of people who think like him...

You only have to read the comments section for proof of that.

el tel

In the UK taxi drivers require a taxi drivers licence and a PSV licence. It doesn't however stop being many of them being w@nk drivers.

Beasty

el tel wrote: »

In the UK taxi drivers require a taxi drivers licence and a PSV licence. It doesn't however stop being many of them being w@nk drivers.

For a private hire licence (which is what we are talking about here, not Black cabs) pretty much all you need is to have held a full EU licence for 3 years, be able to read a map, have a health check, undergo a CRB check, and pay your licence fee

doozerie

Last week [Mr. Griffin - big mouth, small penis, allegedly] told The Guardian his company was losing millions of pounds because of the restrictions and compared the battle between black cabs and minicabs as 'like Northern Ireland".

Well, he is consistent with spouting offensive drivel across a number of topics, I'll give him that.

el tel

doozerie wrote: »

Well, he is consistent with spouting offensive drivel across a number of topics, I'll give him that.

Maybe he mean't the friction between the black and private taxis in Belfast rather than the wider 'troubles'??

But anyway he didn't have to look to our shores, they have had their own black cab -v- minicab battles in London

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7871687.stm

PurpleBee

What about all the provisional drivers unleashed on the roads without a clue how to drive? I know I was one of them, now that's pure madness.

nomdeboardie

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 this was somebody on her maiden voyage into the abyss.

She's gonna die more than once:eek:

Interesting choice of photo in the article - has the cyclist just suffered a negligently close pass by the bus, or is he about to do a questionable undertake himself? No doubt chosen for the inflammatory potential to be seen one way or the other by readers, one of whom naturally goes off-[on-a-tangent]-topic about undertaking of stopped trucks.

Jawgap

Beasty wrote: »

For a private hire licence (which is what we are talking about here, not Black cabs) pretty much all you need is to have held a full EU licence for 3 years, be able to read a map, have a health check, undergo a CRB check, and pay your licence fee

I was involved in taxi / hackney licensing (outside London) when I worked in the UK.

To get your SPSV licence you have to do all the above and pass a "fitness" test - in other words are you a fit and proper person to hold a licence?

Home Office guidelines set a very low threshold - if you were free of criminal convictions for two years and motoring convictions (not including penalty points!!) for 6 months, you were considered fit and proper.

We had to give licences to armed robbers, people convicted of GBH and attempted murder and drug trafficking because they were 2 years free of convictions - having been locked up for periods longer than that!

And to be honest the system in Ireland isn't much better at weeding out the type of people who shouldn't be given the kind of trust that goes with an SPSV.

Briain O Loinsigh

The griffin guy in the article comes across as a bully ,if cycling was to be taken more seriously in any given country ,there would be more space for cyclists on the road. Making his argument null and void.

doozerie

el tel wrote: »

Maybe he mean't the friction between the black and private taxis in Belfast rather than the wider 'troubles'??

Maybe he did. It would take a particularly repulsive nonsense-spouting gob****e to draw a comparison between their own financial woes and the "troubles", after all, but then again he does have form.

doozerie

Ha, BBC radio news just had a report that Griffin has backtracked from what he said, including an audio clip of him where he seemed to sound a bit uncertain but still couldn't resist a dig. He is taking the approach of a fellow git, Matthew Parris, in trying to explain his original comments as a form of humour rather than idiotic blathering:

Following the outcry, Mr Griffin issued a statement saying the article "was meant to entertain and generate debate, but the online reaction has obscured the main message that there are many inexperienced cyclists who need better training to be safe on London's busy roads".

Beasty

I guess his business is suffering ...:D