Initial Observations

So I went on a London taxi in proper traffic, and I observed the following things:

1) Lanes are very narrow indeed. Luckily this does not bother the British because no one seems to be the least bit perturbed to having the driver in the lane next to them swerve halfway into their lane while going 50 mph. Instead of braking furiously to avoid the mad driver with the lane issues, they just swerve over a little themselves. Furthermore, the lane markers are completely meaningless because every now and then one lane will get narrower and narrower and narrower and you assume it was a merge lane even though there were no signs and nobody was behaving in a manner that might suggest that they were going to let each other over. But actually it is not a merge lane, it is just that the line gets closer and closer to the kerb (notice the incredibly authentic English spelling), and then finally I guess the painters were like, Well shit, this won’t do, and a whole new sets of dotted lines appears a few feet to the right of the other one, recreating two lanes. It is totally ridiculous.

2) London taxi drivers are much less friendly than Colchester taxi drivers, and I say this based on my experience of one of each. (I drove with a London cab driver last time I was in London but it was a different kind of cab and therefore doesn’t count, and besides I endeared myself to him by knowing about Sri Lanka and thus he was bound to be a bit more amiable.) The Colchester cab driver told us that his missus always says London cab drivers are mis’rable bastards (he himself does not hold with this view).

3) It does not do any good for your nerves to watch the cab come extra close to hitting things in front, in back, and on either side of you.

4) The bicyclers wear neon jackets and they pedal furiously, and every now and then they glance back over their shoulder in much the same way as Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow when he is being chased by a sinister headless horseman, which they might well do because they know that the drivers of the cars are going to Run Them Down Without Mercy™. It’s true. We nearly hit like seven bike drivers, and they just kept going faster and faster, and I kept thinking, hurray, they’re escaping! but instead the taxi driver would accelerate so that he could hit them. I was always glad when they veered away.