Boycott Addison Lee

You may have read ( http://www.lfgss.com/thread83970.html ) this week about how John Griffin, the owner of Addison Lee, started the week off by instructing his drivers to ignore road laws ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/16/london-cab-firm-drivers-bus-lanes ) by driving in the bus lane. As if that wasn't enough of a risk to cyclists by encouraging all minicabs to encroach on one of the few spaces in which cyclists feel safe, he ended the week by denying cyclists the right to wobble, claiming SMIDSY ("Sorry mate, I didn't see you!") is a defence once you've hit a cyclist and then rolled out the tired line about cyclists not paying road tax.

The Times have a great article ( http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3390328.ece ) pulling apart the latter statement, but the fact remains that John Griffin and Addison Lee are greatly increasing the risk to cyclists by ignoring road laws and denying their part in being responsible road users.

John Griffin has been trying to deflect the outrage to his statements back onto cyclists, calling for cyclists to take training and "pay up", rather than looking at his own actions which is the issue at hand.

Therefore:

LFGSS call upon all cyclists to:

• Boycott Addison Lee immediately.
  
• To petition their employers to close any accounts with Addison Lee.
  
  

The latter is to ensure companies are not complicit in encouraging Addison Lee drivers to flaunt road laws and increase the risk to cyclists and other road users. Many companies have compliance and ethics positions that should allow you as an employee to have Addison Lee taken off the books because of their disregard for laws and the safety of others.

This boycott should run until such a time that John Griffin makes a statement, on behalf of Addison Lee, in which he commits Addison Lee to fully respect all road laws and other road users.

Such a position will obviously immediately reverse the instruction to enter bus lanes that he gave to his drivers.

Alternative companies to Addison Lee can be discovered via the TfL: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/gettingaround/findaride/ and you may also want to consider Black Cabs and the Hailo app.

In addition to the boycott you may also wish to:

• Sign the #10 petition calling for their PHV Licence to be revoked: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/33116
  
• Let Addison Lee know how you feel by rating their apps 1 out of 5 and leaving feedback for their apps telling them why: iPhone, Android, Windows Phone.
  
  
  

And on Monday there is a demonstration happening outside Addison Lee offices at 6pm.

A (suspected Black Cab) organised boycott site:
http://boycottaddisonlee.wordpress.com/

Discussions on forums:
BikeRadar: http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12849053
CycleChat: http://cyclechat.net/threads/boss-of-adison-lee-starts-a-war-of-words-on-cyclists.100443/
LFGSS: http://www.lfgss.com/thread83970.html
London Taxi Drivers Forum: http://londontaxi.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=currenttradetopics&action=display&thread=13433&page=1
Taxi Driver Online: http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19062
TriTalk: http://www.tritalk.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=85827
Urban 75: http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/boycottaddlee.291984/
YACF: http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=58680.0

Selected Press:
BikeBiz: http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/hit-em-where-it-hurts-urges-boycottaddisonlee/012932
The Times: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3390328.ece

Petition signed, will be at the protest if I can get out of work early enough. Told everyone I can think of to ditch their account, nerg the app and have nothing further to do with the cunts.
I've taken 1 addy lee cab in my life(a couple of weeks back): speeding, wrong way up a 1 way, thru a no entry and 2 rlj's all between wapping and stokey. Sounds like he'd make a great forumenger....

Petition signed

Signed and nerged. The iTunes reviews are going well. :)
EDIT, just singed in on a different computer and was able to rate the app again. :)
Also wondering if we should help raise the profile of an alternative for people, such as Hailo.

hailo is great... I do think it should be mentioned.

However, it might start to look like a spam campaign in favour of hailo and the ratings and comments be nuked.

Just upvote as helpful the existing top review that mentions it.

Wac.

BTW, the boycott call has just been sent to the 21,000 people that are on the LFGSS mailing list.

I hate to make LFGSS the centre for any campaign, but truly... fuck Addison Lee. So if you can retweet, tell others, and basically get the message out there far and wide, that would be aceness.

Yeah, I'm largely of the decentralised anarchist view whereby people make up their own minds, others don't tell them what to do, and we get on with our own stuff.

But every now and then, someone like John Griffin provides a moment of focus.

Can someone post this up through the lfgss Facebook page as well.
We can share that easily and spread to many more...?

Go ahead.

I'm not on Facebook... not sure who controls the group on there. Is it not possible for a member of the group to do so? Or is Facebook shitter than even I recall.

Just nerg reviewed the app

Also, next time i see an AL driver using the lane ill be calling the met police to make a complaint about illegal driving.....

Similar threads on tri and other cycling forums seem to popping up all over the shop according to google.
Tri peeps are wealthy as fuck right? So if their business/company contracts get taken elsewhere it should give the long-tie/gaudy watch wearing tit something to think about.

Have you got links to the other threads, I wouldn't mind listing them and attempting to get common agreement across communities.

Petition Signed

Training for cyclists indeed,some of these Addiscum Lee drivers are awful drivers.I have both cameras on for today's commute.

Signed

http://www.tritalk.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=85827
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12849053&p=17568702

One from a taxi forum (bit of unity maybe?)
http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19062

Mayoral elections may be good opportunity to get something done about this. Boris appears to be keeping very quiet on this one so far, wonder whether some kind of open letter to him via Evening Standard would spur a response. Jenny Jones has been excellent and very vocal about this.

Good initiative, signed!

Also found the debate on the London Taxi Drivers Forum, linked them too.

There is a Boycott Addison Lee website that has been set up... I think it's run by Black Cabs. They have a list of major companies that use Addison Lee... so it's easy to check whether yours does, if you work for a major company.

It should be even easier to get a corporate compliance and governance thing started within a large corp as they do not like bad press from their contractors doing bad things whilst working for them.

Could those people on other forums also post link to this thread. I just want to unify the action amongst us. They can copy it onto their forums if they want, I'm not precious... it's more about making sure we all have the same clear goals and will take the same action consistently.

Petition signed. Can I share text from this forum on FB to encourage more signatures?

Yes, share any and all of it wherever you want. I'm really not precious about it... the cycling community is never all in one place, and by whatever means the message can leak out is fine with me.

signed.

Frankly the petition is worth little... the government don't have power to, they will say it's for TfL, and I've already spoken to John Mason at TfL who admitted it wouldn't happen.

It's more a centralised count of those against AddLee.