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“You see my nose?” asks Abu Sadek. “I was beaten very badly, twice. First time, I was unconscious seven days in the hospital, nobody help me. Second time, police was right behind me, police didn’t help me… There’s nothing positive about this job. Nobody help the cab driver, everybody abuse the cab driver… Nobody think we’re human. We can not go bathroom. Where will we go bathroom? Nobody give us entrance. City take every fare, fifty cents from us…I am paying $100 a week to the city, so the city should do something for us.”

Ismail Gaafari is originally from Sahara, Morocco. “Too many funny stories especially because I work night shifts so I pick up drunk people. Drunk people, you can see crazy story in my cab. A girl who stop me and didn’t know where she go, she gives me three destinations.”

After driving a drunk man all the way home to New Jersey only to discover the man had no intention of paying his fare, Resham Varaitch asked the police for help. “Luckily the Hoboken Police guy was passing by and I grabbed him and said, ‘this guy is saying I just gave you the money.’ [The man started] running… across the parking lot and they caught him… and took him inside his house and got me the money.”

Mohammad Shahbaz started driving to support his family. When he’s not behind the wheel, he goes to college where he is getting his Bachelor’s degree in biology.