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There are no days off for cab drivers. So last Thursday, Amin Mohammad was, as always, behind the wheel of his
 taxi, trying to make a living.

Except there was one roadblock: Last Thursday was the first "Storm of the Century" of the season and
 Pakistan-native Amin Mohammad had never driven in snow.

"I am very nervous," he said, as this reporter placed his life in Mohammad's hands by becoming his very first
 snow passenger. "But I pay $575 a week for the cab, so I must drive every day. Oh, my friend, this is very
 scary."

With drifts already several inches deep, Mohammad pulled into traffic like a suburban teenager taking his
 driving test. To spice things up, I asked him to make a few unnecessary turns onto unplowed side streets, and
 the cab bounced around like a sailor on shore leave.

But Mohammad observed caution. If the speedometer hit the double-digits, I certainly didn't witness it (imagine
 having to tell a New York City cab driver to go faster).

"It is so slippery," Mohammad said. "My friend, this is very difficult driving for me."

The fact that you're reading this, of course, means that Mohammad got me home safely. In fact, my snow-filled
 afternoon spent driving around Manhattan with the Yellow Army from Punjab, Haiti, Ghana, Bangladesh and the
 Dominican Republic was far less nerve-wracking than traveling during normal weather, when the lead-footed,
 speed-up-to-the-red-light-and-jam-on-the-brakes style of driving dominates.

"Of course, we are all driving slowly today," said Anjum Nisar, a native of Pakistan. "We are scared to death
 of snow."

Nisar is now a veteran driver, but his first experience with snow-driving came when he had only been driving a
 cab for six months. His training was the on-the-job variety.

"I will never forget it," he said. "My first customer took me out to Avenue Y and the roads had not been
 cleared. I was so scared, I drove 10 miles per hour."

According to the Taxi & Limousine Commissioner, drivers are not given specific instructions on how to handle
 snow -- even though more than 80 percent are from sun-dappled lands where winter is as foreign a concept as
 skyscrapers or dirty water dogs.

Which explains why every cabbie has his own theory about driving in icy conditions. A Bangladeshi-native told
 me that he turns in the direction of the skid (you're supposed to turn AWAY from it), while a patriotic son of
 Haiti told me that he throws it into neutral at the first sign of lost traction (low gear is better).

But I am happy to report that all of my snow-day chauffeurs knew the first rule of winter.

"You gotta be easy on the brakes," said Nazer Ahmad, a native of Punjab. "Of course, in the end, life is in the
 hand of God."

Wonderful. How much snow-driving experience did He have?

--30--

gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net