Taxi Driver Online

A rare piece from the Tivy-Side Advertiser

From what the woman said, this looks like it might be related to overranking, but it's not clear. The taxi doesn't seem too well parked, though...

Of course, maybe she's of the mind that taxis can only stop or park on a taxi rank

But I'm surprised she was convicted of criminal damage and dangerous driving. Maybe something to do with 'narrowly missing' the taxi driver, though.

But, to that extent, it would be interesting to see what looks like a CPS video on the webpage here, but looks like the link hasn't been set up properly, and can't find it anywhere else...


Woman reverses into parked taxi and nearly hits man

https://www.tivysideadvertiser.co.uk/ne ... -hits-man/


Image: Tivy-Side Advertiser

This is the shocking moment when a local gardener reverses into the front of a parked taxi following a confrontation with the driver.

Charlotte Finley, 37, had already reversed twice into the vehicle which was parked behind hers outside a shop in North Street, Cardigan.

When the taxi driver, who was on foot, approached and confronted her she told him that he was not parked in a taxi rank before once more shunting her car into the front of his vehicle before driving off at some speed.

Finley, of St Dogmaels, admitted dangerous driving and criminal damage and was sentenced at Swansea Crown Court on Wednesday, April 10.

The court was shown this CCTV footage from outside the shop on North Road, Cardigan, which showed Finley coming out of the shop at 10.30pm in the evening on June 4 last year.

She reversed twice into the front of a taxi parked on the road behind her vehicle.

The owner of the taxi, who was walking down the road on foot, can then be seen remonstrating with Finley through the open door of her car.

She then reverses a third time at speed and seemingly deliberately into the front of the taxi, narrowly missing the taxi driver with the open door of her vehicle, before driving off.

Video: Crown Prosecution Service

The force of the impact caused £500 worth of damage to the taxi.

His Honour Judge Geraint Walters heard that the taxi driver was walking towards his vehicle when he saw it shunted back twice.

When he confronted Finley she said "you are not in the taxi rank" before forcefully reversing into his vehicle, forcing him to move out of the way to avoid being hit by her door.

In mitigation, barrister Jonathan Tarrant directed the judge’s attention to a pre-sentence report which stated that Finley was ‘fairly isolated in her social circumstances’ and under some pressure at the time.

He said that there was no evidence that alcohol had played a part in the incident.

The court heard that Finley had ten previous convictions, one for criminal damage as a juvenile and two drink-driving offences in 2007 and 2011.

“When the owner [of the taxi] appears you drive what appears to be deliberately into the car. It must have been an upsetting incident for the car owner,” said Judge Walters.

He gave Finley an eight-month prison sentence for the dangerous driving with a two-month concurrent sentence for the criminal damage offence. Both sentences were suspended for two years.

Judge Walters also disqualified Finley from driving for a year, after which she will have to retake her test.

She will also have to pay a £114 victim surcharge and undertake 20 days of rehabilitation activity and 150 hours of unpaid work.

“If you breach the order you will end up serving the sentence,” the judge told Finley.

Did some extensive research after having my tea (well, it's slightly more fun than my next task - doing the dishes ), and this appears to be the locus here

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.08657 ... ?entry=ttu

Some information that may be useful:

1 No sign of a taxi rank. But it looks like Cardi Cabs is based at 59 North Road (North *Street* in the article is inaccurate), which looks like the residential property with the blue wheelie bin. But no evidence at all that it's a conventional taxi office, so presumably a small/one-man band operation run from home.

2 There's a lay-by outside the shop which accommodates three cars, or maybe four at a push. It's double yellows at one end of the lay-by, and zig-zags at the other end, so obviously parking space is a bit tight

3 Outside the Cardi Cabs address are zig-zags for the light-controlled crossing there, so it's fair to assume that Mr Cardi Cabs spends a lot of time parked in the lay-by outside the Spar, or at least will try to park there a lot of the time

4 So deffo no taxi rank, but maybe the woman meant 'rank' in the North of England sense, thus a kind of taxi office

5 The lay-by is actually 30 mins parking max, according to the sign (handily in English as well as Welsh), although in the StreetView above, the road markings for the parking area have effectively disappeared. But there's no limit after 10pm, which is when the incident happened. So, effectively, the taxi driver could park there without time limit at the time of the incident (and, of course, the chances of any enforcement of these rules at that time of night are effectively nil).

6 All of which, of course, is a recipe for conflict and confusion. So absolutely no surprise that this type of thing might happen. No doubt the taxi driver spends a lot of time parked in the lay-by, and no doubt this will cause resentment among other people, particularly the type who will drive 100 yards to the Spar in their jim-jams

So the woman's 'taxi rank' comment is still a bit of a mystery, but absolutely no surprise that there was a big kick off

A couple of other StreetViews at different times. Looks like the kind of shop and parking scenario I'd avoid like the plague if possible.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.08659 ... ?entry=ttu

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.08662 ... ?entry=ttu

Still not a good enough reason for her to deliberately ram the front of his vehicle. I do hope she ends up losing her license for this but suspect it will just be a fine and a mild ticking off from the judge.

Oh and Stuart here's a tip about dishes. Hire yourself a cleaner once a week then you can pile them up and pay them to do them for you !

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The article states she has lost her license, as well as having to take an extended retest before she gets a full license back.

Which for the record is mandatory for all dangerous driving convictions.

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IDFIMH

I know but was waiting to see if stuart or Chris would bite

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That's nice, Edders

I always thought you just couldn't be bothered reading the articles, but now I know it's all a wind-up - who'd have guessed?

To be fair, your various wind-ups may be funny enough as a one-off, but since you've been doing the same thing for about fifteen years now maybe it's all wearing a bit thin?

Anyway, if anyone hasn't seen the (very good quality) video, it might be viewable via the link below (or may end up in your Downloads folder). Took a bit of time to find that (and apologies to anyone offended about me putting a bit of effort into the forum, even while washing my own dishes ), while in fact it was staring me in the face all along

And think I may have done the taxi driver a bit of a disservice earlier, in that I suggested his parking may have been a bit lazy - it was actually the shunt that left his car sitting at a bit of an angle

On the other hand, I wonder if she was annoyed because of how close he'd parked behind her? Of course, we don't even know who was there first, but the evidence in the video suggests he could have reversed a bit instead of taking up too much space, not to mention getting a bit close to the woman's car.

Anyway, no doubting that she's a total headbanger, but better leave it there rather than overanalysing

https://large-cdn.ex.co/transformations ... 8/720p.mp4