How did I not suffer a taxi accident?

A recent taxi ride in London stirred memories of perhaps the most frightening experience of my life: it was in China, in the coastal city of Dalian, when I booked a taxi to take me from one side of the city to another. How on earth I managed to not suffer a taxi accident I will never know.

I pretty much realised I was in for a heart-in-mouth journey right from the off. The clue was hard to miss: a glaringly large plasma television screen mounted on the dashboard - larger than the one I have in my bedroom.

Playing on the above described plasma screen was some kind of zany variety show full of slapstick tricks, explosive sound effects, dizzying CGI animations and raucous music. It was a cross between Strictly Come Dancing, Total Wipeout and an LSD trip.

The driver turned to me, acknowledged with a silent nod the address I'd asked my hotel to write down for me, and accelerated away with seat-gripping G-force.

The stereo system in his cab was immense, all pulsating, bone-breaking base and ear-splitting treble, but he didn't seem to mind. He was too occupied with keeping his foot firmly on the accelerator and his eyes catatonically glued to the plasma screen.

Whenever I bring the story of my trip out as an anecdote at parties, I'm sure people thing I am exaggerating, but I'm not. He really was watching the telly, not the road, and he really did manage to drive at what I guess was an average speed of about 90 mph.

Terrified, I tried in halting Chinese to communicate my discomfort to the driver. Unable to hear me he only continued to laugh at the game show, while turning to the backseat to face me with a rabid smile and half a mouthful of teeth.

I felt like I was skydiving without a parachute.

We screamed through red lights, we drove on the wrong side of the road, we mounted pavements, we took sudden physics-defying turns. It became, almost, like a whirlwind love affair.

There was the object of my love: my life; there, in the front seat, laughing uncontrollably, now lighting a cigarette with his hands as he controls the steering wheel with his forearms, was the man who arbitrary fate in all her cruel mirth had assigned to safeguard it.

Every corner, every landmark, every unblinking second was like a triumph. As I neared my destination, pale-faced and sweating but otherwise completely still, I felt within me a rise of adrenaline that I can only imagine is akin to that experienced by extreme sports junkies.

It was like crossing into another element - one where I could die in a taxi accident any minute - by getting into that taxi I had transcended the banal workaday world of product distribution and found myself an unwitting passenger on the tightrope that is strung between the worlds of life and death.

Miraculously, I reached my destination without suffering personal injury. I did, though, have a small measure of metaphysical whiplash.

And, although every mortal atom was abuzz with self-knowledge, I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone; the risk of a serious taxi accident was simply too high.

Actually, I'm now not so sure that my London taxi near-miss should even be mentioned in the same breath, however pushy the driver was.

Can I claim?