Police

Taxi smacks into Riverhead motel, driver injured

The taxi driver was taken to Peconic Bay Medical Center with a head injury. (Credit: Michael White)
The taxi driver was taken to Peconic Bay Medical Center with a head injury. (Credit: Michael White)

A taxi driver was injured after his cab was side-swiped and careened off West Main Street, striking the side of the Greenview Inn motel, Riverhead police said.

The cabbie’s condition was unknown but police at the scene said he suffered a head injury in the 2:50 p.m. crash.

The driver of a second car actually caused the accident by trying to pass the taxi by using the shoulder.

“He tried to pass on the right, on the shoulder and he side-swiped [the taxi cab],” a police officer at the scene said, describing the other driver as a young person who was running late to work.

The cab then jumped a curb, ran across a front lawn and struck the east side of the cinderblock building

No violations were issued, though the other driver was faulted in the crash.

Riverhead firefighters and ambulance volunteers responded to the scene and transported the taxi driver to Peconic Bay Medical Center.

“They took him out and put him in the ambulance,” said a man at the scene who identified himself as doing a favor for the owner of the taxi company, Town Taxi of Riverhead. “They had to use the jaws to get him out because everything was crinkled in.”

He said he didn’t know how severe the cabbie’s injuries were, though the man appeared to be conscious when the ambulance workers were tending to him.

It did not appear that the motel, which is between Mill Road and Kroemer Avenue, sustained any damage.

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