VILE VICIOUS VANDALS
SOUTHAMPTON PH DRIVER LEAVES THE TRADE AFTER FINDING ALL HIS CAR WINDOWS SMASHED
A private hire driver has described the shock of finding his car’s windows smashed to pieces. Dave Cogdon, 58, was going to pick up a child for the school run when he found his car’s eight windows had been smashed. The retired police officer told the Daily Echo: “I walked to the car and from the distance, I noticed every window of the car had been smashed. My first thought was of the autistic boy I’ve been driving to school who had just got used to me, this is also going to affect him.” Dave had parked his Vauxhall Astra in a lay-by near his home in
Shootash on Saturday 10 September. When he returned just after 7am on Monday, he found it had been vandalised. After taking a break during the pandemic, Dave had his first day back
the previous Tuesday. However, the incident has made
him feel unsafe and he has now decided to quit driving again. He said: “I just had everything authorised, I spent £240 for the renewal of my licence and for the medical exam, and that has been a complete waste of money now. “It filled a gap in my life and gave me a routine, and now it’s gone because I don’t have
the
confidence to leave the car there.” Mr Vivian was told by
the
insurance company the cost of repairing the damage was not economical and the car was written off. He expects it will cost £5,500 to replace.
TAXI DRIVER HIT BY SHARP STONE THROWN BY YOUTH IN BRADFORD
Two cabbies have spoken out after one of them was hit by a stone while driving in Bradford. After dropping off a customer in Bierley, Bradford, taxi driver Sarfraz Khan was driving back into town on Wakefield Road at 2.35am on a recent Saturday when he was hit by a rock thrown from near the Winston Churchill pub by a youth. The stone, which looked like a piece of concrete with sharp edges, was thrown from across the road and travelled through an open window on the passenger side of Mr Khan’s vehicle. He contacted the police who recorded the incident as an assault and has been filed pending any new lines of enquiries.” “I was lucky the stone hit my neck and not on my head or in my eye,” said Mr Khan. “The job’s not safe.”
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Even though he was “surprised” by the incident and fears for his safety, Mr Khan will not be changing his job anytime soon. “This is my livelihood,” he said. “I don’t have any other choice not to do this job. I’ve just invested in a new car because of the CAZ.” Mr Khan’s friend, Habib Nawaz, who is also a hackney driver and member of the Bradford Taxi Association, said the incident is “upsetting and worrying” for
taxi drivers. “We need to protect the safety of taxi drivers and we need the police to take action,” said Mr Nawaz. “This is very serious. He got hit in the neck. He’s very lucky this didn’t cause an accident.” Mr Nawaz said similar incidents of people throwing stones happen every two to three weeks in nearby Holme Wood, which has caused some drivers to refuse to go to the area. “I don’t want to refuse to pick up a customer but we also have to pay to repair our car windows if they are smashed. This can take our taxi off the road for a couple of days. “We just want the police to do something. Too many times, taxi drivers don’t report an incident because they don’t think the police will do anything.”
OCTOBER 2022 PHTM
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