Previous | Next :: Speeding Taxi in Camera Bag Horror : Penn Station : NYC | May 9, 2007, 10:56 pm

So I guess it was inevitable.......... in the end.... either me or my cameras..... or both where gonna run into trouble constantly dealing with speeding yellow cabs........... so today my camera bag with two EOS 1 ds Mk2's and lenses a Mac G4 a couple of card readers and six external drives, power packs and extras.......... gets run-over by a yellow cab......... I know I mean wheres the justice in that......... after it has collectively all served to pay homage to the NYC yellow cab....... the gear was suddenly mauled in an unexpected and unprecedented attack...... it was one of those new Toyota mini-van cabs .......... I've never liked them....... I don't photograph them...... I like a cab to follow the convention set over the last 40 years and more and be the expected cab shape......... anyway Im not even photographing Im just diving out of a correctly proportioned cab at Penn Station...... my cab is kinda double parked I have the camera bag in the car with me and two big old Pelican Lighting boxes in the trunk...... so I put the camera bag down and the driver starts helping me unload the big cases out of the back then this mini-van yellow cab overtakes round the inside literally running over my camera bag....... I had been cursing to myself about the rigidness of this Tamrac bag on wheels cos I had to have it on my shoulder.......... It's great if you use it's wheels (as I normally do) but i have two other bigger things that have to be on the their wheels so Id been carrying it on my shoulder..... but you gotta say it was the perfect bag to survive this attack....... it gets knocked down and forced under the cab........ I see this almost in slow motion and Im half snatching for it half slamming on the side of this cab and all the time yelling at the driver to stop....... My cab driver thinks the other has hit me and is also screaming for him to stop..... the bag rides with the situation well....... it's forced under the car but with its wheels it continues to roll while under the cab and it has its own rigidity therefore stopping it from getting completely crushed....... finally the cab stops....... its hard to get the bag out from under..... but it looks fine...... apart from scrapes of yellow paint.....I wonder if the computer its screen and of course the cameras are crushed and done in......the offending cab driver is screaming at me ......... when the driver of my cab says he should shut up and apolagize he begins instead to scream at my driver saying its his fault for being off the kerb (like half the drivers at Penn Station)..... anyway it was a bit of a close call....... Im on a train to Boston now checking it all out....... it all seems to have survived fine at this point.... that bag.... the Tamrac on wheels has certainly gone way up in my regard......... I already found it very useful....... yeah......... years back I once laughed at my old mate Gavin Smith for having a camera bag on wheels......... but with all these corporate assignments Ive come round to them...... they are perfect for airports...... and I've certainly never previously owned a camera bag that could have passed todays little 'get run down by NYC taxi' test and come through as if nothing has happened........hats off to the 'Tamrack Cyber-Pro-Express' its proving itself against my expectation to be a bit of a mega camera bag!

cheers Jez XX