Melbourne cabbie spits in Uber passenger's face

A Melbourne Uber passenger who was verbally abused by a Silver Top taxi driver before he wrenched open her car door and spat in her face says she plans to press charges over the alleged assault.

The 25-year-old woman, who wishes to be identified only as "Nellie", says the taxi driver's aggression was not provoked and that the incident, which happened on Nicholson Street around 8:30pm last night, left her shaken.

"He started yelling 'f---ing' Uber drivers', 'f---ing get off the road', and I just kind of had a chuckle with the driver and we moved on," Nellie told ninemsn, explaining that she suspects the cabbie identified the Uber driver by his GPS rig.

"Then we kind of went back and forth – he was driving next to us, and then we stopped at the lights and I took a photo of his numberplate, cos I'm like, 'that's not okay, you can't keep on yelling stuff at us'," she said.

That's when things escalated. As Nellie's video shows, the cabbie got out of his car – despite the fact that the light was green – and approached the Uber vehicle.

"When he came up to the window, I was like, 'oh my God – is he gonna hit me or grab my phone and smash it or something?'"

As the footage shows, the cabbie proceeded to open Nellie's door and spit in her face.

But while the video, shared on Reddit and YouTube this morning, bears out Nellie's version of events, a police officer told Nellie that her chances in court could be affected by the fact that Uber is illegal in Victoria.

That seems pretty rich to the insurance rep, who considers herself "thick-skinned" but was still badly jolted by the incident, which she plans to take to court.

"Not only for me being assaulted, I'm scared he's going to do it again," Nellie told ninemsn.

ninemsn has contacted Silver Top and is awaiting a response.