London Olympics: Taxi driver dives off Tower Bridge in protest
A London “Black Cab” taxi drives through a patch of standing water after a heavy downpour in London. Two in every five London cabbies are planning to boycott the 2012 Olympic games because of roadway restrictions they believe are cutting into their business.
Several dozen London taxi drivers slowly drove down the Tower Bridge today while honking their horns, part of their protest against their exclusion from Olympics "Game Lanes," the Associated Press reported.
But one daring cab driver took the protest out of his car, diving headfirst off of London's Tower Bridge, BBC News reported. The jump came after someone had contacted media outlets earlier in the day, warning that he would do a similar stunt, the BBC said. After the dive, another taxi driver took to Twitter to warn potential copy-cats: "Please do not leave your taxi unattended! We have reports that one taxi driver has done just that in spectacular fashion!”
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The cabbies were protesting restrictions being placed on taxis during the 2012 London Olympics. A special network of 100 miles of Olympics Games Lanes has been created, but taxi drivers will be restricted from using about one third of those lanes. The restrictions have angered taxi unions, and two in five cab drivers now plan on boycotting the games.
In this most recent protest, organized by The United Cabbies Group, a man believed to be a taxi driver dived head first off the Tower Bridge, 25 feet above the River Thames, Reuters reported. He miraculously survived the jump, only to then get pulled out of the water by police and arrested on-sight.
"This was an absolutely crazy thing to do. He could easily have killed himself," a spokesman from The Port of London Authority told Reuters.