A TAXI driver who killed a young student by running her over has been banned from the roads.

Steven Clifford Cohen, 58, ploughed into Astrid Yeates on a busy East Renfrewshire road while behind the wheel of his silver Skoda Octavia.

She suffered catastrophic injuries, including a fractured skull, and later died in hospital.

Cohen admitted causing 21-year-old Astrid’s death by careless driving, in breach of the Road Traffic Act 1988, but avoided a jail sentence when he appeared in the dock at Paisley Sheriff Court last week.

Instead, a roads ban was imposed and he was ordered to carry out work in the community.

The court previously heard that Astrid was making her way to a bus stop when she was struck by Cohen’s car on the A77 in Giffnock on January 18, 2019.

She was heading to Strathclyde University, where she was a Masters student, to deliver a presentation on a scholarship programme.

The force of the collision, which took place at the junction of Woodvale Avenue and Ayr Road, sent her tumbling over the car and onto the ground.

Marks on the road indicated that Astrid had been dragged along by the car before it came to a halt.

Members of the public rushed to help her as she lay unconscious.

Paramedics later arrived at the scene and she was taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, in Glasgow, but her condition deteriorated and she was declared dead.

It’s understood that Cohen, who worked as a taxi driver for several years before Astrid’s death, voluntarily gave up his job after the tragedy took place.

After considering the facts of the case, Sheriff Gillian Craig decided against imposing a prison term.

She ordered Cohen, of Speirs Road, Johnstone, to carry out 130 hours of unpaid work as part of a year-long Community Payback Order and disqualified him from driving for 15 months.