Early Sunday morning a taxi driver with a fare was stopped by a tourist from the Netherlands. While the man stood in front of the taxi his girlfriend knocked on the driver’s window. The driver suddenly accelerated, scooped the man onto his hood and drove app. 40 meters, then slammed on the brakes. The tourist, who had been frantically clinging to the hood of the car, was thrown onto the street, landing on his head and back. He suffered a fractured skull and severe contusions to his back.

The taxi driver turned himself in shortly after the incident. He is facing not only criminal charges but the loss of his taxi license and livelihood.

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11 June 2007 (German link)

Sounds like a typical Munich driver, actually.

TOO MANY drivers (and pedestrians) in Munich think that the road rules will take care of everything, and that if you pay attention to them nothing bad can or will happen. The driver probably thought that there wasn't anybody in front of the car, because "who would be so silly as to stand in front of a taxi when it already has a fare?"

More likely the driver thought it was a robbery and panicked.

S'what it sounds like to me

I wonder if reverse would have been an option.

If he panicked then he wasn't taking options.

the police press report says the driver went straight to the Copshop but the passengers from his taxi did a runner (this is against the law apparently as they are important witnesses!) wonder what they had to hide...

I thought it'd be OK as they are Dutch...

I think she means his fare (the passengers who were already in the taxi before the Dutch couple turned up).

I did!
(see item 933)

something similar like this happened to a friend of mine is Aust. The taxi driver thought they were being racist (who knows if he and his mates actually were, but its surely not punishable by death anyway) because he was from Pakistan, and so ran into him killing him. The driver ended up in jail... not a nice story! :s

The taxi drivers in this town get worse and worse. I swear I won't take a taxi anymore unless I absolutely have to. The taxi drivers are ever more often frigging weirdos. It feels almost as dangerous as hitch-hiking. I think the background checks on the drivers are almost non-existent nowadays. They're all from Irak and Pakistan, etc.

Kat, I know if you call the TaxiZentrale in Munich (19410 or 21610) you can ask for a female driver if you'd feel safer?

my mate was drunkenly sat alone in the front of a taxi (late night) when a driver made a pass at her! she was so scared!

i know what you mean Kat, I had a guy drive me home, and after about 5 mins of driving in the general right direction he goes 'how do you get to grobenzell?' me taking the sbahn 99% of the time had no idea, so after a few disastrous tries we finally made €40 later! grrrr

Yes, they are getting worse, AND they don't know where they're going!! It would be nice if the drivers were put under the same rigourous rules as London drivers.

In München? Are you serious...

As serious as a Flying Dutchman, dearie.

Taxi driver stabbed in attempted robbery

aye, it's in the papers now and again, standard type of robbery thing...Taxi driver threatened with a knife cuz they want his takings.

my dad was a taxi driver in Liverpool for a while, it's a risky job sometimes!

No offense, Yeti hon, but do you really think a Dutch couple would try to rob a taxi in front of the local precint? This all happened in the Hochbrückenstrasse.
Then again, if it was so close to the lp why didn't the taxi driver radio for help? Sucks on the passengers. I hope the driver recalls where they had wanted to go. 'twould help if it had been a trip home and not bar-hopping.

That's what happens if you try to pass the Dutchie on the left hand side.

@Sarabyrd

Of course, SOP for Dutch tourists, it's Section 4.1, Paragraph 2 of the Munich Cabbies Guide To Not Getting Robberised (Hansa Verlag).

I could have sworn that everybody, and I do mean everybody, including your good self, knew that.

ahhh well I always thought they only did this sort of thing at the fest...always knew that most of the Munich Taxi drivers were a bit mentally chalanged

Biggest guffaw of the day, pure gold!

Does that mean I can hit a German now and we call it even?

I suppose only with a Netherlands-made car, presuming that the taxi was a Mercedes.

The verdict was delivered yesterday. Considering the severity of the victim's injuries and the criminal energy behind his actions the taxi driver received a fairly mild sentence as his lawyer resorted to plea bargaining. He was sentenced to two years on probation, a fallacy considering that his drivers license was suspended immediately after the attack and cannot be re-issued for another five years, as well as 300 hours of community service.
In court, the taxi driver was still unrepentant, dismissively shaking his head at the DA's charge and at first refusing to accept the sentence until his lawyer talked some sense into him. The lawyer claimed his client was suffering from an anxiety psychosis and felt attacked by the two men advancing on his taxi. The judge, however, whose main target was to permanently prevent the taxi driver from ever driving a car again, said that he was fortunate not to have had his mental state examined; she only agreed to the plea bargain to protect the victim from the additional mental trauma of having to give evidence in court.

He sounds like a royal, A1, bastard. Like most taxi drivers. How can a taxi driver be afraid of 'people advancing on their cars', I mean how else are clients going to get there?

not to side with the driver... but he already had a fare and the two dutch dudes tried to stop him despite that fact... in his eyes it could have been an attempt to rob the bloke... he definitly overreacted... on the other side just go out on any given weekend between midnight and 6am... all the insane shit you see on the streets... it didn't used to be that bad