Taxi Driver Online

Woman throws herself at taxi in Blackpool in crash for cash scam

Link to article with dash cam footage

A woman runs across a road before suddenly veering off and throwing herself at a taxi in bizarre dashcam footage. The taxi driver involved in the incident in Blackpool believes it was an attempt at a ‘crash for cash’ scheme – and the ‘victim’ would claim compensation.

However, footage from Christopher Stewart’s cab on Sunday night shows how her attempt at faking the accident is almost comically bad. The woman and a man run across the road and Christopher slows down – but the woman begins running towards his car and leaps into the bonnet. As she ‘plays dead’ in the middle of the road, the man, who crossed the street safely, opts to confront the confused cabbie rather than check on her.

Christopher, 33, said: ‘It was like it happened in slow motion. I just thought ‘what an idiot’ – I knew straight away what was happening. ‘She was trying to get a claim from a big and respectable company.’

Describing the incident, he said: ‘She started doubling back and heading for me. I was going to put it in reverse but then I panicked there might be a car behind me so I just decided to let it play out, there was nothing I could do. ‘She was then lying in the road and wasn’t moving. The man then came over to my window screaming and shouting and said ‘I’m going to kill you’ and really escalated it.’ Christopher, a driver for Premier Taxis, immediately drove back to the office to report what happened before signing off for the night.

He said it was clearly a set-up as no one helped the woman – even other drivers, who had noticed what happened and drove past instead of intervening. Christopher added: ‘Other drivers must have thought it looked that obviously fake that they just went round her as well. ‘If it was real somebody would have stopped – but no-one stopped to help. The whole incident is just unbelievable.’

John Cutler, managing director of Premier Taxis, said: ‘This is what’s going on, people without dashcams are open to this. Without this footage we wouldn’t have been protected, it’s madness.’ A Lancashire Police spokesman said: ‘We have had a report of this vehicle crime and we are investigating a fraud-related offence.’

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