‘The need for taxis as an occasional back-up will become ever more essential’

• I DON’T know why my fellow cycling campaigner Donnachadh McCarthy displays such special dislike of taxis, but I do know that the statistics he used to try to scare us are nonsense – and would be even if they were accurate, (Why shouldn’t toxic black cabs pay pollution charge?, February 8).

Although my professional statistical work was a long time ago, I know enough to see that comparing the emission of one particular type of pollutant from taxis, with the number of taxis as a proportion of one particular sub-category of vehicle in one particular area of London, and with the proportion of one sort of journey undertaken by taxis, tells us nothing.

Without knowing many other factors, including the breakdown of emissions as between all sorts of vehicles, the division between passenger and other traffic, and the variation in traffic density in different areas of London, we can draw no intelligent conclusions as to how the balance of danger to utility of taxis compares with that balance for other vehicles.

What common sense tells us, however, is that the health of both Londoners and our planet urgently requires us to get nearly all private cars (including the cowboy, tax-avoiding, private hire vehicles) off of our roads, with an almost total switch to public transport, of which our properly-regulated “black cabs” are a small but essential part.

And as we rid ourselves of the current plague of cars, the need for taxis as an occasional back-up to walking, cycling, buses, and tubes will become ever more essential. Not everyone is in a position to undertake most of their day-to-day journeys by bike, as Donnachadh and I do, and cyclists have every reason to support adequate public transport provision – of all types.

ALBERT BEALE
Little Russell Street, WC1