Calgary police have arrested and charged one man in connection with a serious assault of a cab driver early Friday morning.
38-year-old Todd Allan Dibb is facing one count of common assault.
Checker Cabs says one of its drivers was attacked by a passenger at around 2:00 a.m. and the assault resulted in the driver losing control and crashing his cab.
Police arrested the passenger at the scene when they responded to the crash that resulted in the taxi on its roof near the intersection of Crescent Boulevard and Elbow Drive S.W.
The driver was taken to hospital to be treated for head injuries.
Investigators are now looking at security footage taken from cameras inside the cab.
The president of Checker Cabs says the video shows the passenger punching the driver several times, knocking him out and causing him to lose control of the car.
Others in the industry say driver abuse happens fairly regularly and more needs to be done to protect them from harm.
“I think it’s disgusting what our driver had to go through,” said Naeem Chaudhry, general manager of Calgary United Cab. “People don’t realize what they go through when they’re just trying to do their job and get people home safely at the end of the night.”
The driver has been released from hospital, but he is badly bruised and shaken up after his ordeal.
