 "I’m
lucky to be alive," says Phil
Wainwright
Dial-a-Cab driver Phil
Wainwright (M60) looked straight at the
Call Sign reporter: "I don’t
normally trust the Evening Standard,"
said Phil, "but when they said I
was lucky to be alive, they were pretty
close to home!"
It
seemed like a fairly ordinary Wednesday when
Phil left his Essex home on the morning of 7
April. As usual, his first stop was London
City Airport where after a short
"dwell" he got a job to Liverpool
Street Station. After setting down, he
decided to have a look at the rank in
Primrose Street and with all the added
security in the City nowadays, you have to
wait until the railway attendant lifts a
barrier letting through one cab at a time.
Being early morning, the railway employee
was raising and letting the bar down with
one hand while holding and reading his copy
of The Sun in the other. However, he lost
concentration while Phil was going through
and let the barrier down too quickly,
scratching the rather annoyed DaC driver’s
bonnet.
"I
remember thinking what a lousy way to start
the day," said Phil, "but
at least I assumed that it couldn’t get
any worse. Talk about being wrong…!"
What
happened to Phil next was something out of a
horror story. He had trapped a job to
Paddington and decided to join the rank. He
moved slowly along Eastbourne Terrace with a
multitude of other cabs until turning right
and reaching the main part of the rank
inside the station approach leading down to
where passengers queue. Phil, in his
12-month-old TXII, was half way down the
slope and sitting quietly reading his
newspaper waiting for the next push forward,
when he heard an almighty bang. Phil takes
up the story…
"I
thought a bomb had gone off and didn’t
realise that it was only my cab that had
been affected. Then I thought that kids were
throwing rocks or something from above in
Eastbourne Terrace. I just sat transfixed
with my hands over my eyes but hearing these
very
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The bus perches perilously close to Phil's Cab
loud bangs and feeling as though someone was jumping on
the cab."
What had happened was that a bus
driver had left his bus parked above in Eastbourne Terrace to take a short
break, but hadn’t secured the handbrake correctly. As a result, the number 15
bus rolled forwards and crashed through the protective railings overlooking the
rank, pushing some 18 feet of railings on to Phil’s cab parked below! The
total weight of the cast iron railings was estimated at around 2 tons. Had it
all fallen totally on to Phil’s cab, he would have been crushed. Even so, his
cab roof was pushed in some 6 inches, his windscreen was cracked and his bonnet
and most of the Taxi’s bodywork was severely damaged. Looking at the photo,
neither was it beyond the bounds of possibility that the 20 ton bus itself
could have toppled over onto the helpless cabs below. Even so, for a 12-month
old cab to be described as almost a ‘write-off’ gives a clue to how bad the
incident must have been.
Phil then continued his amazing story: "Suddenly
I heard the cab behind shouting and hooting at me to move up quickly. I glanced
skywards and saw the wheel of the bus just above me and still turning! We had
to quickly lift off part of the railings from my roof so that I could drive
forward! When I finally got clear and looked back, I realised that the bus was
perched directly above me and that I could actually have almost touched it. The
cab driver behind told me that because he too was reading a paper, he hadn’t
moved up as quickly as he should. That saved at least his cab if not him."
Phil was taken to hospital after at
first refusing saying he felt fine. Suddenly he started to shake as the onset
of severe shock hit him.
"I haven’t been able to
sleep properly since it happened," said Phil, "but at
least I’m alive to tell the tale. Had the bus toppled over…well it wouldn’t
have done much for my DaC logo!"
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