Boycott Addison Lee

Talking about improvements is all well and good, certainly the first step. However, as long as it's just talk with no action, it's worth nil, at least to me.

You were talking to the media head, it's his job to say they're working on bettering themselves, be it green thinking, pondering electric vehicles, getting cycle training, planting trees to save the earth or learning how to drive sensibly in London.

It takes a split second to ruin your brand like mr Griffin has. It will take a long time to restore it. Even longer to better it.

Don't get me wrong, talking about improvements is the first step, but they have to act as well.

Addison Lee Boss John Griffin 'Could Face Prosecution' After Telling Drivers To Use Bus Lanes

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/05/22/addison-lee-john-griffin-taxis-bus-lanes-cps-met-police-ian-austin_n_1535084.html?ref=tw

Talking about improvements is all well and good, certainly the first step. However, as long as it's just talk with no action, it's worth nil, at least to me.

You were talking to the media head, it's his job to say they're working on bettering themselves, be it green thinking, pondering electric vehicles, getting cycle training, planting trees to save the earth or learning how to drive sensibly in London.

It takes a split second to ruin your brand like mr Griffin has. It will take a long time to restore it. Even longer to better it.

Don't get me wrong, talking about improvements is the first step, but they have to act as well.

Been thinking about this for a bit now. I'm a bit of a cynic, as you might tell from the above, but spending a bit if time thinking about this I feel obliged to encourage what's happening.

That the media head acknowledges that there is a problem is a good thing. It's the first step to fix what's broken. The second step is for him to convince his boss. Best way to do this is to argue it in money terms, ie if he can argue that they make more money by driving sensibly, it's a no brainer.

One way to support that arguing is by boycotting them for not driving sensibly, just like we do at the moment. But if they start talking about bettering themselves, we should acknowledge that and spur them on. We, as fellow users of the roads, and a very visible part of the cycling community (?), should take our responsibility to help them better themselves. To carry on the debate in a cyclist vs cars / taxis / lorries way won't solve anything. If we talk about ourselves as people using the same road, but in/on different vehicles, perhaps we can agree on a way to share the road that works for everyone.

did we win yet ?

no one wins in a game of bike.

although it is possible to fuck each other up.

Somewhere in the first post I put a statement about what is needed to remove the boycott.

The boycott was in response to an action by John Griffin, and John Griffin can reverse that action.

All John has to do, is issue a statement in which he basically says "I was wrong, London's more complex than just a black cabs vs minicabs thing, and we're going to immediately tell our drivers to respect the existing laws and other road users"... hell, he can even add "whilst we seek to engage the relevant parties in conversations about access to bus lanes and other pieces of London's transport infrastructure".

I'm pretty sure any competent PR person could even make him look saintly in the process and sweep the injunction and police investigation under the carpet too.

Reverse the statement, and then the boycott will be lifted.

The problem here is that the head of media doesn't have the authority to do that. In which case he knows what he needs to do, go speak to his boss.

I will forward this to him velocio

Addison Lee media head Alistair Laycock, gets cycle training . He rides to work daily, a 10 mile commute. He completed level 3 cycle skills training and wishes to encourage colleagues to get trained

Now all he has to do is give Griffin Media training and it's sorted

It looks like Redwing coaches are also part of the Addison Lee empire.

Well done, David. Beats a 'die-in' anytime.

It's different to a die-in. It was organised on the spur of the moment and provided not only a quotable event for the press but an event that people not used to activism felt comfortable to take part in. It might have seemed silly to some but it's something that people have heard about and still remember. Although I was involved in this event I still think it was really important in this story gaining traction and was still being quoted a couple of weeks afterwards.

Like every action or campaign, things aren't just in isolation but part of a larger picture which produces change. This was one thing, the training of AL's PR guy another part, a campaign to boycott Addison Lee was run here. Also like every action or campaign that seeks to increase the public's awareness of a situation sometimes the presentation isn't to everybody's taste as it's often intended to be talked about.

Between 200 and 300 people turned up for the event which was covered in the local and national press but maybe more telling was that the AL directors commented afterwards that they were pretty staggered by the response of cyclists at that event. It's very easy for Griffin to claim it's just 'people on the Internet' but taking something to him has a much deeper effect.

You don't have to like the way the event was put together but it was a real success and one I'm very proud of being part of. The people that attended really do care about these issues and we had our chance to take it directly to AL.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3422906.ece

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3422906.ece

Interesting. So where did this happen?

I was at the junction of Bloomsbury Square and Tottenham Court Road

There is no such junction. I can't really work out which one she means. She's either got the square wrong or the street.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3422906.ece

she looks like a granny and probably wobbled.

also...how do we get motor bikes out of the bus lanes?

also...how do we get motor bikes out of the bus lanes?

..and busses?

that's the next step.

Hey. They're bus lanes. Not bicycle lanes. We can share them with certain careful road users if that's what the law allows. I don't have a problem with motorcycles filtering in bus lanes... I have a problem with shite motorcyclists filtering dangerously in bus lanes.

There is no such junction. I can't really work out which one she means. She's either got the square wrong or the street.

She could well mean Bloomsbury Square into Bloomsbury Way.

Bloomsbury Way leads to TCR, and if she's not a Londoner she might mistakenly think that road is TCR... in which case it goes to Bloomsbury Square.

On the West side of the Square it is one-way (South), and then all traffic must turn left onto Bloomsbury Way (one-way East). It is possible for cyclists to turn right onto the bus lane though, or for cyclists to go straight (left and then right within 20m).

So it plausibly is that junction.

That's the only junction I could make work with what she describes. My other guess was going to be where Great Russell St joins Bloomsbury Street, but cyclists can't go straight there, so it wouldn't work. (Although traffic is forced left.)

That's very possible. I thought she meant one where cyclists could go straight across into a street, didn't think that she might have meant a dogleg.

I had first hand experience of a Redwing/Addison Lee coach's attitude towards cyclists this morning heading NW past Oval tube. I was overtaking at a fair speed in the right lane as he was slowly pulling away from the lights (better there than the left side at that junction!) and as I got level with the drivers window he pulled across and sandwiched me into the centre of the road with his front-wing-mounted Addison Lee logo in my face and kept me there as he was about 1cm from my shoulder. I couldn't go across or retreat with him in that position.

He made no attempt to get past or to let me pass across to the inside, instead devoting his full attention to trying to flatten me until we were about halfway around the Oval and I managed to get away. I didn't react as I don't want him to hate cyclists even more but that was scary.

I love the whole AL group.

Sounds like you should've waited behind rather than pass when it was pulling out.

Sounds like you should've smashed his wing mirror.

My AL near miss was with a taxi on the A3 as ever, the rest of the traffic hurtled past without bothering me, it had to be the AL fucko who came close enough to brush my jersey - LS10 XAE's card is marked.

Point taken hippy but he was static in the left lane going in the same direction as me on a two lane road, while I was in a clear right hand lane which also was for traffic going straight ahead - no right turn allowed. I was only there in the first place as he had filled the marked bike lane next to the kerb.

I was up and running having come through the green lights further back whilst he was at the red up ahead which always changes in sequence, about 20 seconds later. He had no need to change lane when he did, particularly if he could see I was right next to him, and he certainly had no need to run me into the middle of the road and hover on my shoulder - by which I mean I could practically feel the air flow around the front corner of the coach - making sure I could not get out of that position.

Complaint to Addison Lee

"Could the driver of L010 MSV please be given cyclist awareness training. This evening he was beeping at me and trying to force me to ride in the gutter around 6.10 in Knightsbridge.

When he went past me he was gesticulating in a rude and aggressive manner, and then he was demanding words with me when I was waiting in front of him at a set of lights.

Just because he is in a car does not give him priority over the road user in front. Beeping repeatedly and waving at me to get in the gutter is not acceptable. This is exactly the kind of behaviour which does your company no favours.

I will be documenting your response here

https://www.lfgss.com/post2917463-611.html
"