Taxi Driver Online

Blow-up doll made council fine me, claims minicab driver


Bash Ali, 41, from Oldham, claims a blow-up doll was the ninth passenger in his minicab after council officials pulled over his yellow Mercedes minibus cab

A ‘party bus’ driver has continued to insist a blow-up doll was the extra passenger that caused council licensing officials to fine him.

Bash Ali, 41, from Oldham, was taking revellers in his yellow Mercedes minibus from Oldham into trendy Deansgate - in Manchester’s city centre - when he was pulled over.

Ali, who originally denied the charges, claimed there was a mannequin doll among the eight human passengers, but pleaded guilty at Manchester Magistrates Court after admitted he couldn’t afford a lawyer.

The married dad of four insisted he felt down by the charges, continuing to state the things he has seen in his job would back up his story.

"I have no faith in the justice system,” he said.

“I see all sorts of sights in this job - men dressed as women, women dressed as men and yes, plenty of dolls dressed up too."

Ali was convicted of using a motor vehicle on a road when the load or passengers were likely to cause danger, and magistrates ordered him to pay £438.12 in fines and costs.

The maximum number of passengers Ali was allowed to take was eight, but officials counted seven men and two women - one of whom the taxi driver insisted was a doll.

However, Paul Scott, prosecuting, told the court that the officers spotted the yellow cab driving along Whitworth Street, near Piccadilly, at around 9pm on Saturday, March 30, with strobe lights were flashing inside and music was blaring out.

Mr Scott said: "There are dangers, clearly, for anybody inside the vehicle and anybody outside the vehicle when it is overloaded.

"So essentially what the council says is that the vehicle was overloaded and that they were all human beings."


source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bl ... z2eOAJNHpE

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

I bet the chances of Bash Ali Poking the Doll with a pin and the Doll not Screaming nor instantaneously deflating were very remote..as if whoever pulled him over could not tell a Doll from a real person and every passenger not mentioning it at the time ..Doh!!

If he was pulled over surely the passengers would have been asked to disembark as the vehicle clearly would not have been allowed to continue it's journey the blow up doll/manequin would have had to carried off.

Surely his defence should have been to challenge the validity of the charge by demanding proof of the 9 passengers be presented to court ?

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

a mate of mine used to use one in passenger seat in multi person occupancy lanes in miami

One of my customers deals with the technology for assessing the validity of the occupants in the vehicles using these lanes and he tells me that you can no longer get away with using a mannequin or blow up doll.

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Grandad,

I was going to say you couldn't make it up, but clearly this mush did.

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IDFIMH