Basil Jet wrote:
On 2012\04\27 12:04, Bruce wrote:
Basil wrote:

When you consider the cost of the vehicle and the fuel consumption (and
consequent safety) are so much lower than a taxi


Eh? Are hackney cabs fitted with air bags? Do hackney cabs have to
pass compulsory crash tests? Have any hackney cabs achieved a 5-star
rating in the NCAP tests, or indeed any NCAP rating at all?

So where is this "consequent safety" of which you write?

Weight. If a London taxi has a head-on collision with a minicab, the
taxi passengers will go ballistic metaphorically, the minicab passengers
will go ballistic literally.


That's a fallacy. The London taxi lacks most of the active and
passive safety features that are either mandatory or are usually
fitted to private cars including those use for minicabs.

The idea that weight is in itself of some benefit to safety is
nonsense. The structural strength of the passenger cabin and the
efficiency at absorbing kinetic energy in the crumple zones that
surround it are key.

There is no evidence that the horribly outdated design of the London
taxi has either the strong cabin or the efficient crumple zones that
are now common in private cars, and hence minicabs. A vehicle with a
ladder chassis and bolt-on body panels has never achieved top safety
ratings in collision testing.

There is of course an exception here, in that the Mercedes Taxi (which
is approved as a hackney cab in London) has much higher safety
standards. However that model represents only a small subset of the
London hackney cab fleet.

Of course if the London Taxi Company voluntarily put its models
through Euro NCAP tests we would know just how safe it is, or isn't,
in a collision. The fact that it has never been tested suggests that
they know their ladder chassis and bolt-on body panels offers very
little in the way of protection to occupants in a collision.