Miklos Verdes, 55, of Ivy Place, Dunshaughlin, County Meath, admitted dangerous driving at Blanchardstown District Court. Judge Áine Clancy fined him €200 and banned him from driving for two years.
On 4 May 2025 he was near the end of a nine-hour shift on Castleknock Road in Dublin when a group of teenagers threw eggs at his taxi. He filmed them on his phone. He told the court he meant to complain to gardaí and hand over the footage.
The collision
While he was filming, he turned onto a road where a 14-year-old on a bicycle was crossing from the pavement. The right side of the bonnet hit the boy and threw him over it onto the road. His bicycle was destroyed.
Garda Rory Walsh said CCTV showed Verdes holding his phone and filming the boy at the moment of impact, rather than watching the road. The boy was with the group, but he had not thrown the eggs. The court accepted that.
The garda said Verdes was verbally aggressive towards the boy and his friends, then left. He later cooperated fully. The court was told he had not been in trouble before.
The boy, now 15, said the bicycle was worth about €800. He was not hurt at the time. Three weeks later he went to hospital, and he said the collision had made an older problem with his teeth worse. He is more anxious on the road.
The sentence
Solicitor John O’Doherty asked the judge to deal with it as careless driving. He said Verdes was not speeding, that the phone was only there to record the eggs, and that a ban would stop him working.
Judge Clancy said she understood how unpleasant it was to have eggs thrown at the car. He still had no right to put other people in danger. She refused to reduce the charge. His attention was not on the road, and that was dangerous driving.