The on-duty death last weekend of the third taxi driver in as many months highlights the physical and financial perils cabbies face behind the wheel, the head of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance said Tuesday.
The death in the West Village late Friday of medallion owner Jagjit Singh came weeks after the union said another driver was found dead in a disabled cab on the Henry Hudson Parkway with insulin in his hands and followed the July 2 death of another cabbie inside his vehicle in Harlem.
“These were not deaths from assaults on the jobs, they were heart attacks or long-standing illnesses,” Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, told The City Reporter. “It seems to us that the drivers did not have enough time to really take care of themselves and it really speaks to how grueling the hours are and that they’re not able to take any time off for themselves.”
Singh’s widow, Sarbjit Kaur, wailed in grief as she and her 10-year-old twin sons laid flowers at a makeshift memorial Seventh Avenue and Charles Street, near where the 52-year-old cabbie was found late Friday by friends who tracked his vehicle to its last drop-off location.
“Nobody could reach him for several hours and his friends went to the broker to ask that the broker look up where the car was, and that’s when we found out the car had been here,” Desai said, referring to brokers who handle medallion business. “The friends came here and found that our brother had died in the taxi.”
Singh, an immigrant from India, had been a licensed Taxi & Limousine Commission driver since 2007, according to the agency, though Desai said he also occasionally worked in construction. In 2023, Desai said he bought his own medallion.
“[He] worked 20 years just for making sure the kids have good education, the kids have a house to live and the wife and everybody else can live in this country a dignified and respectable life,” said family friend Erum Hanif, chief executive of APNA Community Services in Brooklyn. “That was his sole purpose and that’s why he was dedicating 18 or 12 or 15 hours every day and serving everybody else.”
Paramjod Singh described his friend as a devoted father.
“He was a great person,” Singh said. “He served this country.”
Desai said all three of the recent deaths point to the toll that working in what she described as a “grueling, highly stressful job” can take on the 180,000 drivers licensed by TLC. She said Singh is the apparent victim of a heart attack.
“In most professions, you stress out over office politics or promotions or grueling work schedules,” she said. “For drivers, you combine all that with dangers on the job and that you begin every day at a negative paying out of pocket.”
Desai recalled how NYTWA held health screenings for more than 10,000 drivers over the course of a decade, adding that “at every health fair, we always had to call the ambulance.”
She added that Singh’s death and those of fellow cabbies Khalifa Siwa, 53, in August and 73-year-old Richard Coulibaly in July will spur calls for changes to work policy and the long shifts for drivers.
“We can change these conditions so people can live fuller lives,” Desai said. “We’d like to see nurses’ stations at the airports, at the airport lots or at other larger relief stands, where they can check in on their health, they can get guidance, they can get support.”
Midori Valdivia, TLC commissioner and chair, consoled Singh’s widow and children after saying she was “in awe” of his life. She also pledged to “stand in solidarity” with drivers.
“The incredible driver community is what brings me to work every day, but there is much more to do,” Valdivia said. “I do think that the mayor talks about an affordability crisis and a different part of the way the affordability crisis is how it impacts our drivers every day.”
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