It’s awkward to ride alone in a stranger’s car. For many of us, this is a routine experience — we take cabs. Roadway tet-a-tet between the driver and a Penn student rarely extends beyond destination information and a request for change. Each person continues a separate cell phone conversation in the language of his choice.

But two weeks ago, I had quite a different experience, en route to the Philadelphia Airport. As I hurriedly opened the doors of a taxicab, I quickly noticed something unusual. No, not the exorbitant cab fare or the rundown seat cushions. Not the lengthy Nigerian nameplate or the colorful scarf worn on the driver’s head. There was only one thing that really surprised me:

My driver was a woman.

At first, I sat quietly in the backseat, checking to make sure I had my plane ticket for about the fifth time. Peering out the window, I observed the usual near-collisions and listened to my driver gripe about this reckless motor etiquette.

“We do not have collision insurance,” she explained to me. Each driver must personally bear the financial and time expenses that result from an accident — the cab company doesn’t provide insurance.

Her comments broke the cell phone dam. I learned about her exhausting 12-hour shifts that will hopefully pay her way through school. An ambitious woman in a dangerous city, she has to bear day-to-day obstacles that I could never imagine. Her most shocking revelation was her interactions with male visitors to Philadelphia.

“They rely on taxi drivers to take them to where the prostitutes are,” the driver said. “Occasionally, the moment they realize that I’m a female, they are apologetic.”

My driver wished to remain anonymous, in order to protect her job. But she is one persistent woman, working her way through a male-dominated profession in a city quite far away from home. For this, I admire her.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 5:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.