Taxi Driver Online

This is from Ireland, but could just as well be here

There's stuff from two different articles below, which I kind of joined together, in case anyone thinks the narrative doesn't quite join together seamlessly


Taxi driver viciously attacked by woman in Drogheda claims 'nobody gives a damn about us'

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-n ... n-28354946


Image: Irish Mirror

It is the second savage attack the 56-year-old has endured in recent times as five years ago a man was convicted for attacking him as he waited for a fare outside a railway station

A taxi driver has claimed, “Nobody gives a damn about us” after he was viciously attacked by a woman.

It is the second savage attack the 56-year-old has endured in recent times as five years ago a man was convicted for attacking him as he waited for a fare outside a railway station.

Paul Byrne, from Duleek, Co Meath was repeatedly punched after he refused to take a fare because the man was covered in blood.

Paul revealed how the fact he was wearing a seat belt left him a sitting duck.

In footage of the incident one woman can be heard to scream, ‘Get the f***k... f**k off’ and a man is knocked to the ground, apparently unconscious.

He said: “That is the bizarre thing about what happened last Sunday, I don’t usually work in Drogheda any more after the first attack, I generally work around the Ashbourne area but my partner was arriving home late from a show in Dublin so I drove to Drogheda to collect her and decided to finish my shift there.

“I was the only car on the rank in Peter Street and two males and a female got in, as they did I heard another woman screaming further back up the street.

“That woman came running down shouting for my fares to allow her friend to travel home but they ignored her and she then started ranting at me to let him in, I looked at the guy and he was covered in blood and actually still bleeding so I said no. She then yanked the driver’s door open and started raining punches into my face. The seat belt held me in and kind of made me a sitting duck, at one point she dropped her phone and I grabbed it thinking she might just ask for it back and leave but that seemed to make her angrier.

“Then her female friend, started hitting me as well. My initial attacker must have landed up to 30 blows on
me before I said to myself, ‘I have to get away for my own safety’, that is when I got out of the car.

“You are kind of compromised when being attacked by a woman, I knew if I punched her back anyone watching would just see a man hitting a girl and react accordingly so I stayed calm, I have a short enough fuse but I did keep my cool.

“When I got out she caught me with two decent right hooks but I never reacted.

“The next thing was another taxi pulled up the far side of the road and a guy got out and came over and he ended up shoving my attackers’ male friend on to the ground.”


Image: Irish Mirror

Paul admits the two attacks have rattled him.

He said: “After the first one, which happened when I told a man he couldn’t drink beer in my cab, I had to get surgery on the tendons in my shoulder and lost a tooth and this did bring back memories of that.”

“Eamon Ryan recently announced a 12% increase in taxi fares in a bid to get more taxis working nights but when you see something like this happening, and it happens far more often than people hear about no money would pay you.

“Friends have asked me will I put a screen between myself and the back seat passengers and I won't because if I want to relax I have to be able to let my seat back, what I will do though is put a protective screen around the driver seat.

I think its sad that needs to be done but it does, this won't stop me working but it has shaken me.”

The Mayor of Drogheda Michelle Hall said: “A taxi driver earning a living shouldn't have to put up with this.”

One of the women arrested in relation to the incident is due in court next month.

A Garda spokesman said: “Gardai arrested a woman in her 20s following an incident of assault on Peter Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth at approximately 2.45am on Saturday 23rd October 2022.

“The woman was later charged in relation to the incident and is due to appear at Drogheda District Court on 14th November 2022.”

There's a video of the incident and photos of the driver on this website. The photos of the driver show some superficial injuries, but the video clearly shows the woman right-hooking him twice, then one male pushing another male violently to the ground.

Unfortunately there's nothing on the video to show the woman *in* the car hitting the driver, and he claims she hit him 30 times, and that's why he got out of the car

But if she did hit him 'up to' 30 times, they must have been fairly superficial blows. Very scary nonetheless, and it's that old chestnut about drivers maybe being more wary of violent women than violent men, because women are more difficult to handle because they're, er, women

And when I say 'old chestnut', I don't say it because it's particularly boring, but just that we all know the score in that regard now, whatever the powers-that-be and the general public think

https://www.sundayworld.com/crime/court ... 93607.html

Not strictly true.

Taxi and PH drivers care about us, and in this case the police do as well.

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IDFIMH

Indeed, but I suspect the driver means more in terms of proactive policing trying to prevent these things in the first place, rather than reactive policing riding to the rescue once it's all kicked off and heads are broken

But how does anyone know that's not happening?

In other words, how do you access something that hasn't happened?

_________________
IDFIMH

How does *anyone* know?

Could write a book about this kind of stuff, but suffice to say, I suspect the driver's perception has at least some merit, and it's certainly one I identify with.

Do the police care that much about the trade? Of course not, we are viewed no different to any other section of society.

And at times even worse.

The issue we have is many of our problems are viewed as low level by those outside of the trade. Customers doing runners, or pi**ed up idiots verbally abusing drivers.

Now to us in the trade these are major issues, but to the police they hardly register.

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IDFIMH