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@veLLo
Dear Taxi Warrior,
For several reason I always liked black cabs.
Because I'm french and living in London you are part of my permanent "touristic" experience, along with red buses, phone boxes, dirty old pubs, the smell of bacon outside the greasy spoons in the morning, etc...
Because when I arrived nearly ten years ago, if I was lost on my bike, I would often ask my ways to you guys, and always a nice person would give me fantastically accurate directions, generally with a smile (a rare thing if you're coming from Paris!)
Because one day, I found nice garden chairs in a skip, non folding ones, I tried to stack them up and strap them to my messenger bag but it didn't work. There was a line of black cabs nearby. I asked one of them how much it would cost to take the 4 chairs, the bike and myself to my office, and he took the job and was just right about the fare: because it was somehow an unusual little trip, we had a nice chat. He asked me where I was from, how long I'd been in London. I said 5 years, and that old man with his flat cap replied: " you're one of us now" with a proper SE London accent. That was a really nice thing of him to say, I still remember it after all that time.
So I like black cabs, and in my experience as a cyclist, I always felt they were good drivers, in comparison with other professional drivers in the city.
I didn't change my mind about this when one of you nearly knock me off my motorbike doing a crazy last minute U turn in front of my face, without warning. Surely it was a one off, maybe the guy was tired, there was not much traffic around, he just did a mistake, the only one in his whole career...
But after reading your BS in the past few days, my view has slightly shifted, when I see one of you in the street, I don't have the same confident approach anymore, i.e. "I'm sure he'll be careful, they are mostly gentlemen!" (Sorry, lady black cab drivers are not many)
I shouldn't be influenced by your nasty twisted words, but your are so fucking toxic that you managed to change my views on your whole profession, which is, I admit, not very rational. You should come to some of our drinks sometime, maybe we can help each other going back on the path of reason.
Loic