I drive a lot in Sheffield, both in my car and on my motorbike (would also cycle, but it seems like suicide on some of our roads) and I am getting more and more concerned about some of the black cab drivers that we have.

Ecclesall Road seems very bad, especially around the area of Champs. Here the cabs seem to make their own law and often make U turns in the middle of the main road, sometimes without checking it would seem, and most of the time they don't take other road users in to consideration.

The cabs stop anywhere in the road to pick up and drop people off, this is not only a hazard in the road, but surely not safe to encourage pedestrians getting in or passengers getting out of the cab in the middle of the road.

Last week I came round Huntersbar roundabout to be faced with a black cab stopped actually on the roundabout (stationary on the actualy round about, moving vehicles all around it) picking up four people!!! Surely a cab driver that does this should not be allowed to drive on public roads, never mind be licensed to carry paying passengers. Had I have been one of the many people in Sheffield that choose to drive jelly mold like cars with loud sterios at high speeds (which I'm not) then I suspect those people would have been severly injured.
As it was I was travelling at a safe speed (that I do most of the time) and was able to stop when I came across the cab and string of people, but it shouldn't have been stopped there in the first place.

These sorts of events also happen all over the other parts of Sheffield too, especially in the town centre.

I can appreciate these people are trying to make money and that every fare counts etc. but surely people's lives and safety are more important and they should be seriously clamping down on the black cab drivers that are making our roads even more dangeruos than they already are.

Bear in mind that the majority of people taking these cabs over the busy periods such as weekends etc. have normally been drinking, adding further danger to picking them up and dropping them off in the path of traffic.

It's a hazard to both pedestrians and traffic.

I know that not all cab drivers are like this, but it does appear recently that the majority are. Surely it's time for a clamp down and the revocation of some of these private hire licenses?

Originally posted by gpsy

As it was I was travelling at a safe speed (that I do most of the time)

so you mean sometimes you drive at unsafe speeds?

I'm sure they are generally driven safely, but as you point out, they often do not think about the implications of where they stop to pick up/set down.

The amount of times on a Friday or Saturday night the last bus to Bradway would narrowly escape hitting a taxi on London Road outside Bed nightclub.

That problem is now solved of course. Bed has closed down. And the Bradway bus doesn't go down London Road after 8pm!

theyre a right bunch of suicidal ******** on sheaf square

Originally posted by Squiggs
so you mean sometimes you drive at unsafe speeds? No. What I mean is that sometimes I break the speed limit as I am sure a lot of us do. I know this is wrong and I am trying to keep my speed to a legal limit. Having said that, in many occasions the legal limit is not safe and I lower my speed accordingly.

There was no point in me lying and saying that I always stick to the speed limit. Although it's a case of 45-48 in a 40 zone or 80 on the motorway etc. it's still illegal, even though I only do it occasionally. I do not say this is right, but I am being honest.

The point I was trying to make was that had I, or anyone else, have been travelling at a speed that meant they wouldn't be able to stop in time, there could have been a very nasty accident due to the driver of that Taxi stopping on the roundabout.

Originally posted by Andy C
I'm sure they are generally driven safelyThat's the problem though, it appears to me that more and more of these vehicles are being driven in an unsafe manner. Not only unsafe, but a total and almost deliberate disregard for others safety. I could accept it if it was the odd time and they realised their errors and tried to correct them, but the drivers I see doing this appear to do so with such arrogance and such a low view for others safety that it's time somthing was done to cut down on this.

do they all live in tinsley or something? my g/f got us lost once when she panicked on the meadowhall roundabout and we ended up there, it seemed every house had a metrocab parked outside.

Well it appears that the Council aren't at all interested if you check out this interview (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11897) it seems that evidence of a similar standard to that required in court is needed to report a cab driver. :roll:

I think black cab drivers are safer than most other drivers. Having been a professional driver for 8 years I can usually tell who is going to cause an accident and who isn't. The case you mentioned about a cab stopping on Hunters Bar, did it cause an accident? Has anyone ever seen an accident involving a black cab? They may look dangerous but they tend to do their odd manoeuvring at low speeds.

The only problem I frequently notice with Black cabs is that they are liable to pull up at a moments notice in the middle of the road when someone flags them down.

Taxi drivers are the worst drivers on the road in my experience, and this applies to both black cabs and private hire vehicles. The former have a tendancy to stop abruptly to pick up/drop off and perform dangerous U-bends without any indication, the latter tend to drive around at speeds that suicidal Lemmings could only dream of and tend to constantly tailgate.

generalisations.

I've been in taxis that have had ABS lights illuminated indicating a potantially dangerous fault.

I've been in taxis driven by someone who fancies himself as the black-cab Schumacher

I've been in taxis that have been driven carefully and considerately.

Although the nigt drivers do tend to put their foot down more than the daytime drivers...but then again I notice other cars behaving in the same manner.

I would agree that it's the evening drivers that are the worst.

Nobody could possibly drive up Ecclesall Road just once on a Friday evening and then defend the standard of their driving. You can totally guarantee that you will experience a total disregard for the law by a number of Taxi drivers just along that short stretch on a single pass.

Drivers ignore the Taxi rank and wait outside Uncle Sam's at the bus stop, blocking the road instead of using the taxi rank 50 years lower down. Maybe the rank is in the wrong place, but it's there and they should use it!

They refuse to pull into the side of the road, and just stop in the middle of the carraigeway - not so bad when quickly loading, but unloading means that they block the whole road until the incumbent drunks have staggered out, fumbled for change and generally pratted about before wandering into the oncoming traffic instead of being put safely onto the pavement by the driver.

The other BIG worry is that many cabs are constantly on the road, being driven by family and friends, which means that they are not insured.

Originally posted by Tony
Well it appears that the Council aren't at all interested if you check out this interview (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11897) it seems that evidence of a similar standard to that required in court is needed to report a cab driver. :roll: It seems that they want full proof, which is fair enough. I am considering driving with a video camera on my dash anyway, that should be sufficient!

Also my camera phone can be used, when not driving, to gather video footage so if I see one of them doing anything like the above again I will be pulling over (at a safe location) and filiming it.

Originally posted by max
I think black cab drivers are safer than most other drivers. I don't. From what I've seen and from some of the views of others on here it seems that there are some that do not have any regard for the law or the safety of others.

Originally posted by max
Having been a professional driver for 8 years I can usually tell who is going to cause an accident and who isn't. The case you mentioned about a cab stopping on Hunters Bar, did it cause an accident?No it didn't because I was travelling at a safe speed and managed to avoid the hazard that he was causing. Please don't for one minute even suggest that his actions were acceptable because it didn't cause an accident. He was stopped on the roundabout itself, not on a road leading to it, the actual rounabout! That to me is totaly stupid as well as dangerous and surely with you being a professional driver for 8 years and the ability you have to spot who's going to have an accident and who's not you should be able to see that this is not a safe thing to do! By stopping there he put the lives and safety of the people getting the cab at risk as well as other road users.

Originally posted by max
Has anyone ever seen an accident involving a black cab?Yes, I have seen quite a few over the last nine years that I have been driving for. I admit I have seen other drivers have accidents too, but to answer your question, yes.

Originally posted by max
They may look dangerous but they tend to do their odd manoeuvring at low speeds.The manouvres they do may sometimes be carried out at low speeds, but they are dangerous, other wise they wouldn't be considered as dangerous driving or illegal manouvres.
The amount of unsignalled U turns they make, unsignalled stops they do etc. are not safe on the road. My suggestion is that we have a clamp down on the unsafe cabs and make it safer for us all. I am sure that the sensible and safe cab drivers (there are some in Sheffield) would approve of this too.

We have clamp downs on other drivers occasionally, so lets check up on the cabs for a few weeks. Random license, insurance and vehicle checks as well as monitoring the hot spots such as Ecclesall road, covertly, to catch the drivers who aren't driving safely. This can only be a good thing for all of us, including the decent cabbies?

Originally posted by Tony
Drivers ignore the Taxi rank and wait outside Uncle Sam's at the bus stop, blocking the road instead of using the taxi rank 50 years lower down. Maybe the rank is in the wrong place, but it's there and they should use it!Surely this is illegal? I will look further in to this as it's something that occurs all the time and if so the council should be made to do something about it, if not then the Police will definately be interested after a few complaints.

Originally posted by Tony
The other BIG worry is that many cabs are constantly on the road, being driven by family and friends, which means that they are not insured.This is another problem I have heard of, but only witnessed once in all the years I've used cabs.
We were getting a cab one night and the driver explained his meter wasn't working so he would have to guess the charge. I'm not sure if that's allowed, but it was raining and cold and we wanted to get home.
While going home we all noticed the ID the driver had in his cab was a completely different guy, but again unsure if he shared his cab with someone else or what we didn't do anything about it.
His driving was pretty poor and he didn't have a clue about where we were going, so we ended up guiding him most of the way, but I would say that between the meter not being used, the ID and the lack of knowledge up some of Sheffield's main routes that it would point to not being the licensed driver of that vehicle.

Anyway, if this does happen then it's something else that could be caught and stopped if we had this surveilance for a couple of weeks, which again leads to safer cabs and safer roads for us all.

I was chatting to a friend today who spent most of Saturday night/Sunday morning in Casualty because of a Black Cab driver. She was sat in the back and all of a sudden he put his foot down and she was thrown forward, off the seat and was knocked out. Her and her boyfriend got out of the cab, she collapsed so he called an ambulance. The cab driver just drove off!! Her bf was more concerned about her so didn't manage to get his number. They can't trace the driver so can do little about it so it seems.

FetishFairy, I am sorry to hear about your friend, but suspect that soon someone will post on here that she should have been wearing the seat belts provided. Regardless of that, the driver shouldn't have driven erraticaly in the first place and to leave an injured person like that is disgraceful.

This again shows that Sheffield cabs need looking in to.

I've never noticed black cabs being anymore dangerous than most of the muppets out there. After all, if they were to crash, it wouldn't be good for business. I'll agree that it gets crazy down Ecclesall Road at night, but all the drivers seem to be bad down there, not just cabs.

On the roads that I use daily, the black cabs that I see definately seem to drive more dangerously than the average driver.

I admit there are bad drivers on the road that aren't cab drivers, but there are a large number of black cab drivers that drive in such a way that I can't believe they are allowed to be on the road, never mind take paying customers in their vehicles.

Snook, how many of Jim Henson's creations do you normally see on the road??

OK, only Gonzo that once... and that was after a few pints... but you see my point?

Why are there so many songs about rainbows?

Originally posted by Snook
OK, only Gonzo that once... and that was after a few pints... but you see my point?

Why are there so many songs about rainbows? I think your point was that taxi drivers aren't the only bad drivers on the road, and I agree.

However, there are many black cab drivers that don't appear to be fit for the job and the point I was trying to make is that black cab drivers have a responsibilty to the safety of their passengers and those around them. A responsibility that not all of them are taking seriously.

The problem of tackeling dangerous road users is quite a huge task, but if we can tackle the dangerous black cabs and sort them out then we are part way to the bigger solution. Fair enough they are one of many problems on the road, but they are (or some of them are) a problem that needs sorting.

As for the songs about rainbows, I'm not sure. Maybe it's the colours?

Anyway, not wanting to wonder off topic, that's my point laid out.

I am not in any way attacking the cab drivers, I just want the bad apples either sorted or removed!

when i first read this post i thought you were all being a bit unfair, but today we went onto hunters bar roundabout (from banner cross) and went in the left lane to go up brocco bank when a taxi driver cut in front of us from the inside lane and then braked really hard right in front of us to pick up some passangers just before the lights at the bottom of brocco bank. It was really dangerous and we only just braked in time, luckily there was no one behind us otherwise it would have been worse. There is surely some rule about stopping like that on a roundabout?!

It would come under dangerous driving, but as pointed out before you need evidence or many witnesses.