‘We are family’: Yellow Cab devastated after Vancouver crash takes coworker’s life
Posted December 29, 2019 2:52 pm.
Last Updated December 29, 2019 4:48 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Tributes are pouring in online, as the victim of an early morning crash in Vancouver has been identified as 28-year-old Sanehpal Singh Randhawa.
Around 3:30 Sunday morning, the cab Randhawa was driving was t-boned by a ShareNow smart car, formerly known as car2go, that had run a red light near the intersection of 1st Avenue and Renfrew Street.
Officers from the Vancouver Police Department believe speed and alcohol may have factored in the crash.
Randhawa had been working for Yellow Cab for the last three years, and according to Yellow Cab President Kulwant Sahota, he was loved by his coworkers.
“He has been around since 2015, and he has been an excellent driver. The person he drove the car for has nothing but accolade for him.”
Randhawa had worked full-time for the company, all while going to school and had just bought a new home in Surrey with plans to move in the New Year.
Sahota says the whole company is shocked by the senseless loss of life, adding Randhawa had no family in B.C. and attempts are still being made to reach his parents in India.
“We look after our own, and if somebody does get into an accident we will go a visit them in the hospital, we’ll go and make sure they are okay,” he tells NEWS 1130.
Sahota adds since he started working for Yellow Cab, he has never lost a colleague to a crash.
“I’ve been around for about 25 years, and I can’t remember a death happening in Yellow Cab.”
According to Sahota, the company would like to pay for all the funeral costs as a gesture for Randhawa. “He is part of our family,” he says.
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The car2go driver, in their 20s, has been taken to hospital with serious injuries.
The cab driver had also been driving two customers, but they’ve been treated with non-life threatening injuries.
Constable Steve Addison with the VPD says his heart goes out to Randhawa’s family and calls the crash sad and tragic.
“Something like this is tragic anytime that it happens, let alone the holiday season two days before New Years,” Addison says.
