Mining town's only cabbie banned from driving THE northeast Australian mining town of Collinsville has a big problem - its only cab driver has twice been booked for drunk driving and has lost his licence.
And now others who have been caught drunk driving are blaming the fact that there's not a taxi in town to get them home from the bar.
Collinsville, 1,245km north of Brisbane, has a permanent population of about 2500, but that is vastly inflated by fly-in, fly-out workers.
Magistrate Athol Kennedy, alarmed by the number of residents facing drunk-driving charges, recently called for the speedy processing of the cab driver's application to get his licence back.
Kennedy cancelled taxi driver Joseph David Webster's license for a month last March, after he pleaded guilty to driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.109.
Webster claimed to have had a couple of cans of beer before picking up a fare. At the time, police prosecutor Sergeant Dave Blundell said residents would have trouble getting home from the pub.
And so it has proved, police say.
Last month, Kennedy queried why the town's only taxi driver still had not had his license restored and asked police to see if they could fast-track the process.
After Kennedy directed Sergeant Adrian Geary to make more inquiries, he returned with bad news for Collinsville - Queensland Transport rules stipulate that cab drivers with drunk-driving convictions must wait a year for licence renewal applications to be processed.
And there was more bad news. Webster had again been booked for drunk driving.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-n ... 6288649054
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