Driver’s death rattles colleagues and friends, raises questions about safety on the job
Chicago livery drivers knew that they could count on Mohammed al Hijoj to bring them coffee and a snack if they were in between clients in an area near him. If someone needed help registering a vehicle or pointers on conduct with passengers, al Hijoj made sure they had the information they needed.
He’d been driving in the Chicago area for 15 years and was generous with his knowledge and time, they said.
“He was always helping everybody,” driver Fil Moscosa said. “He was a mentor in the community.”
When al Hijoj was shot and killed while driving the evening of Dec. 3, the WhatsApp group chat of more than 1,000 livery and ride-share drivers in Chicago lit up with the news.
Working drivers across Chicago have long worried about potential dangers while on the job. Just Friday, a taxi driver was stabbed by a female passenger overnight on Michigan Avenue in the Magnificent Mile, Chicago police said.
In February, ride-share driver Milton Pillacela Ayora, 31, was fatally shot and a male passenger injured in the Little Italy neighborhood after four men in a silver SUV pulled next to him and someone inside fired shots at the vehicle, police said.
At a condolence gathering for al Hijoj Tuesday night, drivers in attendance said his death had left them rattled as well as grieving. Sahil Pinjara said if a veteran such as al Hijoj could die on the job, then he would worry even more for less experienced drivers.
“If that could happen to him, then what about someone who just started?,” he said.
The day after he heard that al Hijoj had died, Pinjara, who works as a livery driver and picks up ride-share work for Uber Black, installed a dashboard camera in his vehicle.
Like many limousine drivers, al Hijoj also picked up work for the ride-share company Uber. Al Hijoj’s friend Amer Alrifaee said the worst thing about his death is that it’s not clear how al Hijoj ended up in a situation that led to him being shot.
“It could be somebody booked directly with him for his car service,” Alrifaee said. “Or somebody else may have farmed out the job to him and said, ‘Hey, I got clients for you.’ Or it might have been an Uber ride.”
Uber released a statement calling the loss of al Hijoj devastating.
“No family should have to suffer through such an unthinkable tragedy, and our hearts are with his loved ones during this difficult time,” the statement reads.
The company said it had been in touch with law enforcement and “will continue to assist however we can.”
As of Friday, Chicago police said no one was in custody in connection with the death of al Hijoj, who was shot while driving in the Austin neighborhood. A witness told police the vehicle came to a stop in the 1700 block of North Lotus Avenue and that four men inside the vehicle fled after shots were fired.
Although al Hijoj was shot while driving, it’s not clear who he was with and detectives are still investigating.
This year, Chicago has endured a wave of car thefts and robberies, which are up by 47% and 25% from 2022 even as homicides are down citywide, per police data. Neither the Police Department nor the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection keep public data on how many of Chicago’s roughly 36,000 ride-share and 2,500 livery drivers are victims of crime.
But advocates and the drivers themselves said they are vulnerable to carjackings and robberies because “we welcome strangers in our cars,” said Lenny Sanchez, Illinois director for the Independent Drivers Guild. “Criminals don’t need to hide on the street corner and approach a car to try and steal it.”
Of approximately 500 Chicago metro area drivers surveyed in a January 2023 study by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the University of Illinois, 79% reported feeling unsafe at least once a month on the job.
Sanchez is part of a network of advocates pushing for Chicago’s City Council to approve an ordinance that would require passenger verification to protect ride-share drivers, among other safety provisions.
In August, 20,000 ride-share drivers and delivery workers from Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Grubhub working in Illinois announced they were joining the national movement led by Justice for App Workers to demand better wages, safer working conditions, an end to unfair account deactivations, health and mental health care benefits, access to bathrooms and union rights.
A company spokesperson pointed to features on the Uber app such as the emergency button and in-app audio recording as resources for drivers who felt unsafe on the job. Uber also requires riders who pay using anonymous forms of payment such as gift cards to upload a form of identification, and said it would expand rider verification requirements next year.
Mohammad Othman, a close friend of al Hijoj and third-generation driver whose brothers are all also in the business, last saw al Hijoj less than a week before he died, when he FaceTimed him. The pair had been helping circulate a petition intended to apprise city leaders of the challenges facing livery and ride-share drivers and ask for further regulation of ride-share companies and livery licenses.
“It’s tragic. You don’t know who you have in your car,” Othman said Friday after learning of the most recent stabbing of a taxi driver on Michigan Avenue. He was planning to meet other drivers that day to remember al Hijoj in a prayer room at O’Hare International Airport.
The ride-share industry began as a side hustle, Othman said, with drivers picking up passengers on their way to work if they had extra room.
But now, many drivers rely on livery and ride-share work as their full-time source of income. Othman said that means many drivers who are hurt on the job return to work as soon as they can, despite safety concerns.
“They can’t afford not to work. They have a family to feed. It’s a sad reality,” Othman said.
Othman drives for ride-share between his client bookings — “we all do,” he said — and said he’s taken many jobs that have made him feel unsafe or uncomfortable. He said passengers have physically threatened him or talked down to him, saying “certain things that they wouldn’t say to anybody else.”
Some app riders hail cars from accounts that don’t give a full name, just a letter, which worries him. But he said he’s afraid to reject a ride because drivers work on a performance basis and negative customer reviews can lead to “deactivation,” or losing access to a driver account.
Othman said he’d like to see ride-share companies require passengers to put their photo on profiles.
“We want to be able to go to work without looking over our shoulders,” he said. “There’s so many steps that we can take to make it a better situation for the drivers and the riders.”
The measure up for consideration in the City Council, sponsored by Ald. Michael Rodriguez, 22nd, primarily deals with compensation for drivers, but also contains provisions to prevent ride-share drivers from becoming victims of crime.
“These drivers are picking up, all day long, people unknown to them,” Rodriguez said. “There are some common sense things I think we can do.”
The proposal, which Rodriguez said takes some cues from similar legislation in New York and Washington state, establishes penalties of up to $20,000 for assaulting a public chauffeur. The measure would also require ride-share passengers to verify their identities, though it doesn’t outline specific requirements for that verification.
In the event that a driver became a victim of crime, the ordinance would require a ride-share company to turn over data about passenger verification to law enforcement.
“The community may think that apps capture your identification and communicate enough to drivers that they may feel safe and that’s obviously not the case,” Rodriguez said.
In a statement, a Lyft representative said the proposal as it stands would make it more difficult to keep unsafe drivers off the app.
“However, by working collaboratively with city leaders, we can strike the right balance between helping drivers get back on the road and maintaining the safety of everyone involved,” the statement read.
The proposal is in the Workforce Development Committee. It has 19 co-sponsors, primarily from the progressive wings of the council.
Alrifaee said al Hijoj loved his work and the city, where he’d lived for 15 years after arriving from Jordan.
“He loved the freedom,” Alrifaee said. “He loved driving in Chicago, he enjoyed Chicago, he loved transporting Chicagoans. He loved the flexibility. He loved being his own boss.”
Al Hijoj’s favorite places in Chicago were the Loop and O’Hare International Airport, near where he lived. He has a wife and three children.
When the friends spent time together, they’d go out for a meal — alHijoj’s favorite places were Kabobi in Albany Park and Ez Shawarma in Norridge — and talk shop.
“He always paid,” Alrifaee said. “He’d pick a fight at the register, say, ‘You’re not paying, you’re not paying.’”
After his family and food, he loved motorcycles. The car he died in was a black SUV Cadillac Escalade. Alrifaee said al Hijoj’s brother would likely take the car.
The discussion in the drivers’ group text has been slower and sadder over the last few days. Drivers who came to mourn al Hijoj said there had been fewer jobs offered and people were slower to take them.
The day after al Hijoj died, Alrifaee had been out driving anyway. But he said he spent most of the day wishing he could just go home.
