Taxi's

cyclopsbiker

is there some way of finding out the vehicle reg for a taxi if I know the taxi number?

It's 61188.

kelsen

London private hire? The following gives you the driver...

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/businessandpa ... licensing/

W1

kelsen wrote:

London private hire? The following gives you the driver...

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/businessandpa ... licensing/

That's a very handy link.

kelsen

Another useful link...

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTr ... /index.htm

cyclopsbiker

thanks guys...good links

Gussio

Assume that you want to get in touch to pass on congratulations for a choice piece of driving?

cyclopsbiker

Gussio wrote:

Assume that you want to get in touch to pass on congratulations for a choice piece of driving?

absolutely. revving engine behind me, well, almost on top of me, then undercutting but still half in my lane was amazingly skillful.

I get into the right hand lane as I turn on the A2 from Deptford Church st as I'm turning right just after the ped crossing and need to be in the right filter lane...if I don't then I can't get across the traffic. it works usually. just the taxi last night decided I was going too slow, and my indicating right meant nothing to him as he beeped his horn in annoyance.

deptfordmarmoset

cyclopsbiker wrote:

Gussio wrote:

Assume that you want to get in touch to pass on congratulations for a choice piece of driving?

absolutely. revving engine behind me, well, almost on top of me, then undercutting but still half in my lane was amazingly skillful.

I get into the right hand lane as I turn on the A2 from Deptford Church st as I'm turning right just after the ped crossing and need to be in the right filter lane...if I don't then I can't get across the traffic. it works usually. just the taxi last night decided I was going too slow, and my indicating right meant nothing to him as he beeped his horn in annoyance.

Off-topic, but I was at that right filter lane last week and I waited and I waited. I think I was left standing in the middle of the A2 in the rain for about 5 minutes, and the lights went repeatedly through their phases with nary a green light for me. I couldn't see any sensor that a vehicle might have triggered. I eventually got the red light hump. Is it always like that?

cyclopsbiker

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

Off-topic, but I was at that right filter lane last week and I waited and I waited. I think I was left standing in the middle of the A2 in the rain for about 5 minutes, and the lights went repeatedly through their phases with nary a green light for me. I couldn't see any sensor that a vehicle might have triggered. I eventually got the red light hump. Is it always like that?

unfortunately yep. the sensor doesn't register cyclists waiting ... unless you're the size of a bus. even cars sometimes get missed. loads of residents in our development have complained but nothing has been done. the whole junction is a joke. I have to admit this is one of the only places that I jump a red. I figure its safer to be off that bit of road with the cars and lorries whizzing round the corner heading the other way.

deptfordmarmoset

Hmm, if you're on a bike and stuck on a red light that is never going change in the middle of the A2 until a bendy bus comes along and drives up to your rear wheel, I don't think that should count as RLJing.

So TfL have comprehensively planned bikes out of that junction. Brilliant!

W1

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

Hmm, if you're on a bike and stuck on a red light that is never going change in the middle of the A2 until a bendy bus comes along and drives up to your rear wheel, I don't think that should count as RLJing.

So TfL have comprehensively planned bikes out of that junction. Brilliant!

I suppose, in theory, if there are ped crossings you could get off and use those. But I can appreciate it's annoying not to "register" as traffic!

deptfordmarmoset

W1 wrote:

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

Hmm, if you're on a bike and stuck on a red light that is never going change in the middle of the A2 until a bendy bus comes along and drives up to your rear wheel, I don't think that should count as RLJing.

So TfL have comprehensively planned bikes out of that junction. Brilliant!

I suppose, in theory, if there are ped crossings you could get off and use those. But I can appreciate it's annoying not to "register" as traffic!

Walk over this box junction, you mean! http://deptfordmarmoset.blogspot.com/20 ... ssage.html

W1

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

W1 wrote:

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

Hmm, if you're on a bike and stuck on a red light that is never going change in the middle of the A2 until a bendy bus comes along and drives up to your rear wheel, I don't think that should count as RLJing.

So TfL have comprehensively planned bikes out of that junction. Brilliant!

I suppose, in theory, if there are ped crossings you could get off and use those. But I can appreciate it's annoying not to "register" as traffic!

Walk over this box junction, you mean! http://deptfordmarmoset.blogspot.com/20 ... ssage.html

Well not straight accross it, obviously!

How would you get accross if you were a pedestrian?

deptfordmarmoset

W1 wrote:

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

W1 wrote:

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

Hmm, if you're on a bike and stuck on a red light that is never going change in the middle of the A2 until a bendy bus comes along and drives up to your rear wheel, I don't think that should count as RLJing.

So TfL have comprehensively planned bikes out of that junction. Brilliant!

I suppose, in theory, if there are ped crossings you could get off and use those. But I can appreciate it's annoying not to "register" as traffic!

Walk over this box junction, you mean! http://deptfordmarmoset.blogspot.com/20 ... ssage.html

Well not straight accross it, obviously!

How would you get accross if you were a pedestrian?

Well, you wouldn't do it there because pedestrians have also been designed out of the system. I'd probably cross at the lights 100 or so yards to the left of the pictures if I were on foot. If I accepted that a red light that stays permanently red to a cyclist was a light to be obeyed, I'd have to cross the junction by proceeding straight over the lights, dismounting, walking across the lights - out of sight to the right of the photos - and if you live in Cyclops Towers you probably wouldn't bother getting back on the bike again because of the series of slow-you-down raised brickwork humps in the road that remove your fillings when you cycle over them at more than 4 mph.

cyclopsbiker

pedestrians cross either by the DLR bridge at the ped crossing, or further down the road at another ped crossing, or at one of the islands in the middle of the road...but it is like running the gauntlet even with the lights in your favour.
as for getting home...ie into Cyclops Towers...I if possible I time it so I'm able to take a right turn into the bus station, I never stop at the white line in the filter lane as that feels too dangerous, if I don't manage to do a right turn before the end of the filter lane I park up by the raised bit of central curb bit. knowing the light sequence helps to know when to cross. anyone unfamiliar with this junction would be better crossing at the ped crossing (or is it a toucan?...it is....) at the west side of the DLR bridge. I do this option sometimes.

deptfordmarmoset

There's one bit of cycling along Cyclops Parkway that I enjoy (occasional route to Tesco's). On the development there are 2 rows of grey traffic-calming bricks across the road but there are gaps of little more than 25mm between the bricks. It's quite a challenge to take them at speed and not hit the bricks. You probably have to be using rims no wider than 23mm to manage it at all though. But correct me if I'm wrong

It's a bit like the childish pleasure I still get from deliberately aiming to catch a pebble in the road just under the side of my rear tyre so that it gets launched tiddlywinks-style into the air with a satisfying whoosh-ping. Now I come to think of it, I wonder if other people do that too...

cyclopsbiker

I like the fact that all the local features are being named after me!!

those bricks are waaaay too narrow for my nobbly mbt tyres. other half bunny hops them which is amusing... the brick widths aren't uniform so you really must have to pay attention.

never done the pebble-tiddly-winks thing....I'm sure I do have little things like that which amuse me, can't think what right now. apart from having a car whizz past me impatiently just to pass them seconds later as they get stuck in traffic...the bit by kfc on my route home is good for that...there's pretty much always a queue of traffic over the bridge, nice cycle lane and a bus lane follows

jonny_trousers

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

Hmm, if you're on a bike and stuck on a red light that is never going change in the middle of the A2 until a bendy bus comes along and drives up to your rear wheel, I don't think that should count as RLJing.

So TfL have comprehensively planned bikes out of that junction. Brilliant!

Thank you sir, thank you!

Canny Jock

cyclopsbiker wrote:

Gussio wrote:

Assume that you want to get in touch to pass on congratulations for a choice piece of driving?

absolutely. revving engine behind me, well, almost on top of me, then undercutting but still half in my lane was amazingly skillful.

I get into the right hand lane as I turn on the A2 from Deptford Church st as I'm turning right just after the ped crossing and need to be in the right filter lane...if I don't then I can't get across the traffic. it works usually. just the taxi last night decided I was going too slow, and my indicating right meant nothing to him as he beeped his horn in annoyance.

Yeah, that's a nasty turn and the least favourite part of my journey. Similar happened to me once with a white van there who insisted on going round me on the right before cutting back in to head into Greenwich. A few choice hand signals and phrases were exchanged, then 2 of them got out of the van so I decided the best course of action was to bravely ride off as fast as I could...

deptfordmarmoset

cyclopsbiker wrote:

I like the fact that all the local features are being named after me!!

those bricks are waaaay too narrow for my nobbly mbt tyres. other half bunny hops them which is amusing... the brick widths aren't uniform so you really must have to pay attention.

never done the pebble-tiddly-winks thing....I'm sure I do have little things like that which amuse me, can't think what right now. apart from having a car whizz past me impatiently just to pass them seconds later as they get stuck in traffic...the bit by kfc on my route home is good for that...there's pretty much always a queue of traffic over the bridge, nice cycle lane and a bus lane follows

Wouldn't it be great though if you could get so skilled at pedally-winks (it's a game I've been inventing this evening - I reckon golf balls would be good, hard and fast) that you could deliberately ping a marauding cabbie's bodywork?

The brick widths aren't uniform but the gaps are surprisingly even. Narrow tyres may not necessarily be the way forward, but they're definitely the way in between in Cyclopscity.

Yes, after the old canal bridge by KFC you've got a downhill run at the bus lane and you automatically think you're almost home.

deptfordmarmoset

Jonny_Trousers wrote:

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

Hmm, if you're on a bike and stuck on a red light that is never going change in the middle of the A2 until a bendy bus comes along and drives up to your rear wheel, I don't think that should count as RLJing.

So TfL have comprehensively planned bikes out of that junction. Brilliant!

Thank you sir, thank you!

I gather you're over familiar with the junction - unless we've just found an example of ''safer to RLJ!'' It's busy, so TfL's solution is to make it impossible for any means of transport except motorised transport in order to maintain maximum traffic flow. You can't safely navigate it on a bike and the only safeish way is to do it in a motorised vehicle. Big, unwieldy and heavy wins and by excluding small, fluid and light, this automatically means more big, unwieldy and heavy. The solution is to have more of the problem!

W1

Jonny_Trousers wrote:

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

Hmm, if you're on a bike and stuck on a red light that is never going change in the middle of the A2 until a bendy bus comes along and drives up to your rear wheel, I don't think that should count as RLJing.

So TfL have comprehensively planned bikes out of that junction. Brilliant!

Thank you sir, thank you!

...except there's a perfectly possible way of crossing as a pedestrian.....

But I'm sure you'll ignore that for being "silly".

pianoleo

Yes, there is, but to get to the crossing you'd have to walk your bike through a (small) bus station, and there IS an ASL so on some level they're intending for cyclists to use the junction.

There is one traffic light visible from Deals Gateway that indicates what the other traffic is doing. I find that if you wait for it to turn red (last step of the phase before the traffic light you've just technically RLJd turns green) and then allow one more car to swing across from the right, you're safe to go, and can build up speed before the opposing traffic cuts across you.

I'm going straight to hell...

rjsterry

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

It's a bit like the childish pleasure I still get from deliberately aiming to catch a pebble in the road just under the side of my rear tyre so that it gets launched tiddlywinks-style into the air with a satisfying whoosh-ping. Now I come to think of it, I wonder if other people do that too...

Have probably chipped the paintwork of a fair few cars this way :oops: A 23c @ 120psi makes a remarkably good 'wink'. It's especially common at this time of year with all the debris washed out of the potholes lying around.

hatbeard

pianoleo wrote:

Yes, there is, but to get to the crossing you'd have to walk your bike through a (small) bus station, and there IS an ASL so on some level they're intending for cyclists to use the junction.

There is one traffic light visible from Deals Gateway that indicates what the other traffic is doing. I find that if you wait for it to turn red (last step of the phase before the traffic light you've just technically RLJd turns green) and then allow one more car to swing across from the right, you're safe to go, and can build up speed before the opposing traffic cuts across you.

I'm going straight to hell...

ahh. so you're another local then? I live up by wickes/pets at home so I'm lucky that I only have to cross that junction heading along the a2 and not from the side streets.

I use the toucan crossing to stop the traffic and then pull onto the road the other side so it gives me a headstart on the way down to the junction itself before the other traffic can catch up. (usually hit the back end of the traffic ahead of me by the time the cars catch up behind).

deptfordmarmoset

hatbeard wrote:

pianoleo wrote:

Yes, there is, but to get to the crossing you'd have to walk your bike through a (small) bus station, and there IS an ASL so on some level they're intending for cyclists to use the junction.

There is one traffic light visible from Deals Gateway that indicates what the other traffic is doing. I find that if you wait for it to turn red (last step of the phase before the traffic light you've just technically RLJd turns green) and then allow one more car to swing across from the right, you're safe to go, and can build up speed before the opposing traffic cuts across you.

I'm going straight to hell...

ahh. so you're another local then? I live up by wickes/pets at home so I'm lucky that I only have to cross that junction heading along the a2 and not from the side streets.

I use the toucan crossing to stop the traffic and then pull onto the road the other side so it gives me a headstart on the way down to the junction itself before the other traffic can catch up. (usually hit the back end of the traffic ahead of me by the time the cars catch up behind).

I like your style, Hatbeard. You stop all the rush hour traffic on the main road between London and Europe, just to start your commute

hatbeard

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

hatbeard wrote:

pianoleo wrote:

Yes, there is, but to get to the crossing you'd have to walk your bike through a (small) bus station, and there IS an ASL so on some level they're intending for cyclists to use the junction.

There is one traffic light visible from Deals Gateway that indicates what the other traffic is doing. I find that if you wait for it to turn red (last step of the phase before the traffic light you've just technically RLJd turns green) and then allow one more car to swing across from the right, you're safe to go, and can build up speed before the opposing traffic cuts across you.

I'm going straight to hell...

ahh. so you're another local then? I live up by wickes/pets at home so I'm lucky that I only have to cross that junction heading along the a2 and not from the side streets.

I use the toucan crossing to stop the traffic and then pull onto the road the other side so it gives me a headstart on the way down to the junction itself before the other traffic can catch up. (usually hit the back end of the traffic ahead of me by the time the cars catch up behind).

I like your style, Hatbeard. You stop all the rush hour traffic on the main road between London and Europe, just to start your commute

I could try and cross without doing so but that would likely result in my death.

I did originally go up through the ashburnum triangle onto norman road and join creek road there but i'm about 10x more likely to die at the hands of a lorry on norman road than crossing either junction by deptford bridge dlr. plus I had to start/finish my commute going over a (small) hill which was rubbish.