For years the Amsterdam taxi world has been dominated by trade in taxi permits resulting in very high prices to be paid in order to be able to drive a taxi cab. The result is that many of these drivers are in debt and fear loss of income. All very understandable. The trade in permits wasn't exactly legal, it wasn't illegal either. It wasn't supposed to have happened in the first place.
Traffic rules Traffic rules in Amsterdam seem to be absent altogether.
In fact, for a part this appears to be very true. It's the result of being lax towards forcing those rules upon the people subject to them. At that time police had their hands full on dealing with hard crime. In connecting with a general lack of respect for those hardworking, law abiding people enlisted to maintain public order, things rapidly deteriorated. It, more or less, started with cyclists disregarding their rear and front lights, conveniently forgetting about pointing direction before taking a turn, or waiting for a traffic light when it signals red.