{"id":346804,"date":"2026-09-14T23:08:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T23:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346804\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T23:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T23:08:19","slug":"taxi-driver-tragedy-nyc-cabbie-found-dead-in-his-car-last-week-is-third-lost-in-as-many-months-union-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346804\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxi driver tragedy: NYC cabbie found dead in his car last week is third lost in as many months, union says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 52-year-old cabbie was found dead in his car Friday night \u2014 the third death of its kind in as many months, prompting the union representing the city\u2019s for-hire-vehicle drivers<\/a> to demand action on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The union \u2014 the NY Taxi Workers Alliance \u2014 said that the driver, who it declined to identify out of respect for his family, pulled over after making a drop-off in Manhattan\u2019s West Village between 5 and 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 11.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe started work around 2:30 that afternoon and all the friends, they talk to each other, so they inform each other when they\u2019re starting their shift,\u201d said the union\u2019s executive director, Bhairavi Desai, of how he and his other driver friends communicate throughout the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the rush hour, everyone\u2019s trying to just contact each other, maybe have a break together, and they just couldn\u2019t find him,\u201d she added. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t answering.\u201d<\/p>\n

The driver\u2019s friends tracked down his cab to where he parked near the corner of 7th Avenue and Charles Street around 11 p.m. Friday night, Desai said. They were able to find him by contacting the broker for his taxi medallion, who used a GPS locator attached to the cab\u2019s meter to trace it to the West Village corner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe broker found that he had done a drop\u00a0between 5\u00a0and 5:30, and the car had not moved since then,\u201d she said. \u201cSo then the friends drove there immediately and got there around 11, and that\u2019s when they saw that he was just inside the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Desai said the driver\u2019s friends noticed upon arriving that the cab was on with the air conditioning running. She added that they then immediately called 911.\n<\/p>\n

Emergency services personnel arrived and found the driver unresponsive, according to the NYPD. They tried to resuscitate him but were unable to, pronouncing him dead at the scene.\n<\/p>\n

The alliance will hold a memorial for the driver on Tuesday morning at the West Village intersection where he was found.\n<\/p>\n

Taxi drivers need self-care, union rep says<\/p>\n

The driver\u2019s cause of death is still being determined by the city\u2019s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, according to the NYPD. However, Desai said, the speculation is that he had a heart attack.<\/p>\n

The driver, who lives on Long Island, is survived by his wife and 10-year-old twin children, Desai said. He has been a cabbie for many years, having purchased his taxi medallion with two of his friends in 2023.<\/p>\n

The death comes after the union late last month held a vigil to honor one of the other taxi drivers who recently died in their cabs over the summer.\n<\/p>\n

The 73-year-old driver, Gustave Bertrand Adjeli Yao, known in Harlem as 73-year-old Richard Coulibaly, was found by the city\u2019s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to have died from natural causes. Coulibaly died on July 2, during an extreme heat wave, which included the city\u2019s first 100-degree day in over a decade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The union held a separate memorial this past Friday for the other driver who died in their cab over the summer: Khalifa Siva.\n<\/p>\n

Desai said\u00a0Siva was diabetic and was found holding his insulin while pulled over inside his cab on the Henry Hudson Parkway near 81st Street in Upper Manhattan in late August.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the connection between all three deaths, Desai said she believes they stem from drivers having to make fewer trips over longer hours with less time for breaks.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re just spending less time, even during the shift, taking care of themselves,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cLess time to go to the doctor and get your medicine and\u00a0just properly take care of yourself. You\u2019re supposed to work the job. The job\u2019s not supposed to work you.\u201d<\/p>\n

A fellow cab driver named Wain Chin expressed a similar sentiment in a WhatsApp message shared with amNewYork.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many of us put in long hours of work to cope with the rising cost of operation and living,\u201d Chin said. \u201cThe same time app companies are trimming the compensation for our work. It is so much one body can take.\u201d<\/p>\n

Desai said the best solution is \u201ccomprehensive economic reform\u201d for the industry that can allow drivers to earn more \u201cwithout working themselves to death.\u201d Additionally, she said they could use more resources for access to health care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 52-year-old cabbie was found dead in his car Friday night \u2014 the third death of its kind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[32701,129794,129795,9,24,129796,63,103,129797,134,136,135,129798,129799],"class_list":["post-346804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-bhairavi-desai","tag-gustave-bertrand-adjeli-yao","tag-medallion","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny-taxi-workers-alliance","tag-nyc","tag-nypd","tag-richard-coulibaly","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-wain-chin","tag-yellow-taxi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}