(PICTURED) Meet Sara Bahai – Afghanistan's Only Woman Taxi Driver; She Braves Death Threats To Defy Conservative Traditions

Female passengers giggle when they see a woman behind the wheel, and tell Sara Bahai (Photo: nydailynews.com)

Sara Bahai's decision to become Afghanistan's only known female taxi driver was motivated less by ideals of equality than by the need to support an extended family — and a love of driving that has confined her conservative detractors to the rear-view mirror.

AP reports:

She [Sara] still remembers her first time behind the wheel, shortly after the Taliban were driven from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. "I felt like I was in the sky, and I totally fell in love with driving," she said. There was no turning back.

In this Tuesday, March 3, 2015 photo, Afghan taxi driver, Sara Bahai. (Photo: news.yahoo.com)

Bahai, now around 40 years old, had already spent much of her life defying taboos in Afghanistan, where women are widely regarded as inferior to men and discouraged from working outside the home.

She never married, she said, because she had to support her parents and siblings and feared a husband would prevent her from working. With no children of her own she adopted two boys, now both in high school. When Taliban insurgents shot and killed her brother-in-law, she took in her sister and seven nieces and nephews. She now supports a dozen people.

To put food on the table, she drives around the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in a spotlessly clean yellow and white Toyota Corolla with sparkly woven seat covers and a good luck talisman in the front window.

In this Tuesday, March 3, 2015 photo, taxi driver Sara Bahai, 40, right, waits for customers in Mazar-i Sharif city, capital of northern Balkh province, Afghanistan. For Bahai, becoming Afghanistan's first and only woman taxi driver in living memory was a pragmatic step rather than a brave one. But in a country where women are regarded as inferior to men and often suffer horrific abuse simply because of their sex, she has also become a breadwinner, trailblazer and role model who believes women must stand up for themselves if her country is to achieve peace, prosperity and happiness. (AP Photo/Mustafa Najafizada)