VIDEO A TAXI driver and his passenger were contemplating their lucky escape today after their car collided with a BMW before crashing through a fence and into the front wall of a Felixstowe house.

A TAXI driver and his passenger were contemplating their lucky escape today after their car collided with a BMW before crashing through a fence and into the front wall of a Felixstowe house.

Veteran cabbie Graham Hart and his fare John Turner said they thought their time was up when Mr Hart's red Ford Mondeo careered off Cobbold Road and into the detached house.

Mr Hart was ferrying 64-year-old regular passenger Mr Turner from the Tesco supermarket in Felixstowe to his home in King Street in the town when the Mondeo was in collision with the white BMW which had been travelling along Princes Road.

The Mondeo then mounted the kerb, smashed through the white picket fence before coming to rest wedged against the brick wall.

A shocked Mr Hart, of Oakstead Close, Ipswich, said: “I thought my end had come, I really did.

“I saw the fence and just said 'good God' - there was nothing I could do.

“We smashed right through the fence and into the corner of the house. I saw it and couldn't do anything about it. I think I've just aged ten years.”

Mr Hart, 57, a cabbie for 25 years, had only picked his passenger up about three or four minutes prior to the accident.

Jennifer Molloy, who lives in the house on the corner of Princes Road and Cobbold Road with her husband, was using the computer in her study when she heard the collision outside and wondered what had happened.

With the Mondeo still wedged against her front wall, she said: “I heard a crunch. I came out and saw the car in the front garden.

“It was a bit of a shock to see it there. He could have come straight into the front room.”

The accident happened at about 4.20pm yesterday and the first ambulance arrived at 4.28pm. The BMW is believed to have been carrying a mother and her two teenage daughters.

Jason Gillingham, clinical field operations manager for the East of England Ambulance Service, was aboard one of the ambulances called to the scene.

He said Mr Hart, Mr Turner and the mother and teenage girls from the BMW were all seen to by the ambulance officers.

Mr Turner, who had gone out shopping and was on his way home, was left with stiffness in the back of his legs but was otherwise unhurt.

He said: “I didn't see anything, I just felt it. It all happened too quickly really. I was in the back fortunately. The woman driving the BMW was a bit shaken up and the girls were upset.

“The fence probably broke our speed.”

And even after the accident he remained impressed with Mr Hart's driving. “He is a good driver,” he said. “I've been with him lots and lots of times.”