| It would be great to speak to you 'offline', I think it would be really interesting to compare experiences. A few points which I hope you might find interesting. London taxies are pretty tall (6ft easily) and there is no chance of being able to see over a London bus! It is a fairly common thing to think of Europeans countries as driving tiny, economical cars. However that isn't nearly as applicable in London as elsewhere in the UK and much of the rest of Europe. The congestion charge for driving into central London is prohibitively expensive such that only those people who can afford it, driving almost SUV sized range rovers, or those who make a living from it driving vans, taxis or buses do it. Our cities and road networks have evolved around streets and roads dating back to Roman times. They are rarely straight, often narrow and heavily congested. We have no concept of jaywalking and our pedestrian population universally appears to have a death wish. The quality of driving in the UK in general is reasonably high, though I find it more variable in London possibly due to the number of foreign drivers. Driver attitude to motorcyclists is interesting. Generally most allow us to get on with it, some are actively helpful and a small percentage attempt to stop you getting through. The last group generally don't succeed for long, even if I do have to get a little creative! That being said, the average speed of traffic through rush hour London is 12mph so it's easy to see why skipping to the front of a few queues makes a big difference! |