Sandra Zaval, 41, is one of the few female taxi drivers in New York, where more than 100,000 taxi drivers are registered with the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission.
Zaval has two children and goes to work seven days a week. From Monday to Friday she works from six in the morning until three in the afternoon, when she picks up her son at his school and ends her workday.
On weekends, when there is more work, sometimes she’s out on the job as many as 12 hours a day. Zaval earns around $100 a day, with which she supports her children and lives a quiet life.
“I'd never be able to earn that much at any other kind of work,” claims Zaval, who worked for many years in factories before becoming a taxi driver.
“Zaval is one of the 3 percent who are women working in a sector with 40,000 livery and black car drivers, spread around at 466 stations, or bases, throughout the five boroughs,” says José Vilorio, the director of the New York State Taxi Drivers Federation.
Of the Federation's Livery and Black Car driver members, 22,000 are also registered with the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission. In addition to these, more than 50,000 taxis, including yellow cabs, are registered with that Commission.
The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission's 2005 report reckons that of 40,000 taxis, 407 were driven by women, who have been part of the union since 1925. Nonetheless, because of the city's danger and insecurity in the 1970s, women temporarily left the profession until 2002.
The only thing that is hard for Zaval is when there are no calls for a cab.
“I don't pick up people on the street. I only do calls,” Zaval assures us, after having lost her co-worker, Bessy Velázquez, in an accident caused by a drunk driver on Sunday night.
For the dispatcher at Myrtle Car Service, Miriam Marín, 24, driving a cab is a perfect profession for women.
“The flexibility of the hours gives the women time to be with their families,” says Marín.
Nevertheless, even though driving a taxi is safer nowadays, women are a minority in Brooklyn taxi companies.
At Cypress Car Service in Bedford-Stuyvesant, only seven of the 110 cars are driven by women. At North Side Car Services in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, of the 150 cars, women drive 20. At Myrtle Car Service where Zaval works, nine of the 115 cars are driven by women.
