Cabby who cut off leg is driving again, New York Post, April 20, 2014
He couldn’t wait to get on the road again.
Cabby Mohammed Faysal Himon sheared off the foot of a British tourist in a grisly accident at Rockefeller Center last August, but despite the ordeal — and a claim that he didn’t want to drive a cab anymore — he’s been back behind the wheel of a taxi for months, The Post has learned.
Since Feb. 14, Himon, 24, has been driving a yellow cab out of 28th Street Management, a leasing agent operating out of a Tenth Avenue storefront in Manhattan, according to Taxi and Limousine Commission records.
“He has been driving regularly, uneventfully — thank God — and just doing what he has to do,” Himon’s lawyer, Cynthia Fisher, told The Post.
Himon was driving on Sixth Avenue on Aug. 20, 2013, when his cab jumped the curb and slammed into Sian Green, 25, who was with a friend at West 49th Street.
The horrific accident cost the Leicester beauty queen her left foot and later her leg below the knee.
Himon claimed he was cut off by cyclist Kenneth Olivo, 41, and lost control of his cab after he tried to zip ahead of the pedal pusher.
After the accident, the TLC suspended Himon’s license for 30 days, and he was slapped with a summons for operating a cab he was not authorized to be driving.
But since neither the Manhattan district attorney nor the NYPD filed criminal charges against Himon, the agency reinstated his license, which he claimed last Sept. 26. The TLC — which has vowed to take new steps to keep dangerous drivers off the road — did ask Himon to voluntarily surrender his license, but he refused, an agency spokesman said.
The Bangladesh native, who has been in the United States about five years, later admitted to The Post that he was a lousy driver, and records show he racked up three moving violations for nine points on his license in 2011, including citations for running a red light and driving 65 mph in a 45-mph zone.
Two of those points were removed after he took a defensive-driving class, and his record has been clean since resuming his job, records show.
Since the accident, Himon has taken another defensive-driving course, noted Fisher, his lawyer.
“Driving in the city is so dangerous,” Himon said after the crash, adding that he hoped to find a more “suitable” job. “I don’t want to drive a taxi. I want to study medicine to help people.”
But he’s apparently sticking with the taxi gig.
“He brought his family over here. Right now he’s trying to maintain them until he figures out what his next move is going to be,” Fisher said. “I don’t think he’s really made up his mind yet.”
Himon briefly worked for Arthur Cab in Queens after the accident — but was quickly fired after the company discovered he had lied during a job interview.
“I asked if he had any accidents. He said no. He drove here two days,” a manager said. “The TLC called and asked if he was working for us, and then they told me.”
But as Himon settled back into his old life, Green struggled to adapt to her new one.
“Back at home in Leicester at the end of September, the reality of being an amputee hit me,” she wrote last week in The Sun newspaper of London, recalling “terrifying flashbacks.”
“I had to use crutches or a wheelchair to get around, and I couldn’t drive my car anymore. I had no independence, and I found that very hard.”
Himon’s free-wheeling is a bitter pill for her to swallow.
“The darkest time was finding that the taxi driver .?.?. wouldn’t face criminal charges,” said Green, who is pursuing a $27.5?million civil case against Himon and the city.
“I have to live with the consequences of his actions for the rest of my life, so why shouldn’t he be punished?” said Green, a student pursuing a fashion career.
Last November, TV celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz, who happened to be at the bloody Midtown scene that August afternoon, paid for Green to receive a high-end prosthesis — on which she is now comfortably walking and one day soon, she hopes, running.