A FRIGHTENED cabbie could only watch helplessly when a teenager hurled himself at his windscreen as he drove down one of York's busiest roads.

Brian Norrie had only been working as a taxi driver for two weeks when the drama happened early today.

Sergeant Colin Ventress of York Police said the 18-year-old man had been seen by witnesses running in front of another car before he lunged at Mr Norrie's taxi near the junction with Lilac Avenue at about 12.30am.

The driver of the car which missed him then saw him lying in front of a second car, unconscious.

The young man was taken to hospital with what ambulance crews described as serious head injuries, but police say his condition is not life-threatening.

Mr Norrie, 56, said he was upset and shaken by the incident.

"If I'd have swerved I would have gone straight into a brick wall," he said.

A former president of the Licensed Victuallers Association, he had only been driving his taxi for two weeks. But he said the incident would not stop him continuing his new career.

When he first saw the man in the middle of the road, he thought he was trying to hail him down. But he threw himself at the car and headbutted the windscreen.

Mr Norrie said he had been told that the teenager had been upset by an argument.

Updated: 13:11 Wednesday, October 22, 2003