Taxi driver fined for helping people during anxiety
The story of the fine imposed by the Zvyagel patrol police on a taxi driver is gaining publicity. During the curfew, he agreed to a local resident’s persuasion to take her and her children to a shelter at one of the city’s factories during the alert.
The taxi with the woman and her children missed the shelter, where city residents flock to during air raids. The police stopped the car near the bus station and demanded an explanation for the curfew.
According to Suspilne Zhytomyr, citing police sources, the driver was fined for some other traffic offense. After all, the current legislation does not provide for a fine for driving during the curfew. There is only a draft law. The woman and her two children, one of whom was sick, ran the rest of the way to the shelter. It is not known for certain whether sirens were blaring or machine guns were firing at the shaheds somewhere outside the city, but the situation was alarming.
The story might not have gone public if it had happened if the curfew had been violated by a taxi driver who was delivering “merry” passengers from a night party. However, in a city with few shelters, people from the most dangerous areas of the city are getting to the equipped shelters of local businesses and some institutions as best they can.
It is easier for those who have their own transportation. Those who don’t have one call their friends and acquaintances. It’s impossible to order a taxi at this time because of the curfew. Some taxi drivers, at the risk of being fined for violating the curfew, still agree to the persuasion of their friends, whose calls they often respond to, and deliver entire families to shelters during the air raid.
Formally, the patrol officers are right – it is impossible to violate the curfew. At the same time, it is not prohibited to run/go to a shelter during the curfew, which may be at the end of a neighboring street or block or somewhere else. In such cases, why not allow taxis to deliver people to shelters?
This was the question that Svitlana Kruchok, the grandmother of these children and the mother of the woman who persuaded a taxi driver she knew to come and take them to the plant’s shelter, asked herself.
“I understand that the curfew and the law are the same for everyone! But… Where are the shelters in many parts of the city? People cannot call a taxi during the air raid to get to the nearest shelter! An hour ago, my daughter and grandchildren persuaded a taxi driver they knew to take them to a shelter (there is no shelter near the train station!) and they were stopped by the police and fined,” Svitlana Kruchok wrote on her Facebook page.
Of course, the police will investigate and clarify the circumstances, as the situation has become publicized. However, this will not solve the problem of small towns with shelters, taxis, and similar stories during curfews.
