Documentary : Zen and the Art of Taxi Driving in Mexico City : You see, there are two types of cabbies: laid-back and kamikaze. You’d better hope you don’t get the latter.

If Sisyphus were condemned to eternal toil today, he might well be assigned to drive a taxi around the smog-smothered, traffic-choked streets of Mexico City.

Then again, he might be made to ride in one.

During the four years that I have taken taxis to and from work and all about this megalopolis, I’ve had plenty of hellish experiences. I’ve also managed to size up a fair number of the city’s 60,000 taxistas . Each time I step into a cab, I look at the cross and rosary beads hanging from the rearview mirror and ask myself: Is this a cautious man who seeks extra protection? Or a wild man who needs all the insurance he can get?

I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of Mexico City cabdrivers fall into one of two categories: Zen or kamikaze.

Zen drivers are those calm creatures who accept that their fate is one with the machine. They are careful drivers who believe that honking will wear out their battery before it will move traffic, who smile and chat or sense that you are too tired to talk and put on the news.

Their cabs are decorated with little fuzzy animals or pictures of their children or the Pope. They ask if it is too cold for you with the window open and move slowly but graciously with the rhythm of traffic.

“Why get upset?” asked Zen cabby Ramon Flores, 36. “This is my job and I have to do it the best way possible and with pleasure. Because it’s what I do all day and I’ll die before I’ll ever fix the problem.”

Kamikaze drivers, on the other hand, believe that Mexico City is something to confront and conquer. To beat the traffic, they plow into the freeways’ pygmy on-ramps and charge in the wrong direction down narrow, one-way streets. These frenetic drivers believe that if they just go fast enough they can fly over crater-like potholes rather than fall into them--which is why they have no shock absorbers.

They fight inch by inch through an obstacle course of mongrel dogs, garbage trucks and cyclists with five-foot stacks of newspapers on the back of their bikes. They speed up behind trucks with bumper stickers that read “Frequent Stops,” weave in and out among 50,000 minibuses and many more street vendors. In a city of 18 million people, the kamikaze drivers seem drawn by fate to the most suicidal pedestrians, and they go head to head.

Most taxis in Mexico City are Volkswagen Beetles with the shotgun seat removed. This makes it easier for passengers to climb into the back, but as far as I am concerned, it also makes it easier to fly through the windshield from the back seat of a kamikaze’s cab.

These drivers use their horns instead of brakes, which they consider a last resort. I try to calm myself during these white-knuckle rides with brain teasers--like, if a Volkswagen traveling at a rate of “x” miles per hour were to rear-end a Grand Marquis that stopped suddenly, at what speed would the passenger fly. . . .

The upside of a kamikaze cab is that you don’t need coffee in the morning because you get an adrenaline rush from the ride. You do, however, need the adrenaline to remain conscious amid the gas fumes. Kamikaze cars tend not to be well-tuned.

Kamikaze drivers play ranchera music at full blast from speakers set directly behind your ears. Their dashboards are plastered with race-car stickers or sayings like “Dios y Suerte”--God and Luck. While Zen drivers wear surgical masks against the smog, kamikazes chain-smoke cigarettes.

Now admittedly, I may not be the easiest cab passenger in Mexico City. Like Holly Hunter’s character in “Broadcast News,” I tend to tell the driver what route to take.

“Where are you going?” the driver asks as I get in.

“Go to the light and turn left,” I say.

“Where are you going?” he asks again.

“Right at the next light and straight.”

And so on. In the United States, this might be enough turn a Zen driver into a kamikaze, but as often as not Mexico City cabbies are happy to be absolved of responsibility.

It so happens that the most direct route from my home to work requires the driver to cut across four lanes of traffic within a short block in order to make a right turn--a maneuver the driver never seems to mind. Nor I. For as we all know about driving, somebody else’s offense is an outrage, while your own is just fine.

If you ever want to befriend a cabdriver, just start commiserating with him about cops and corruption. “There’s a rat in training,” a 67-year-old cabby named Jorge said pointing to a police officer at the corner. “See his whiskers growing. I tell you, I’ve seen the corruption and lack of respect get worse and worse. They pull you over and start with, ‘What are we going to do about this?’ and, ‘How about something to buy a little cup of coffee, a little soft drink?’ ”

Single women have to be careful about chatting up cabbies or even making eye contact. Otherwise they are subjected to this annoying drill: A driver looks a woman over in his rearview mirror and, if she’s a foreigner, asks where she is from. Typically, that is followed by “Are you married?” and “What do you think of Mexican men?”

Then, there are the philosophers. Cabbies have an incredible stock of information about the world’s largest city--they often know the day’s ozone readings, for one--and experience in life. I am surprised by how many drivers have worked in the United States.

Jose Maria Aguirre is one. The 27-year-old lived in the San Fernando Valley for a year, working as a janitor at a brewery. “I could have bought passports for my whole family,” he said, showing off his California driver’s license and company ID.

“But I’m young and I don’t like to be a slave to work. I want a normal life. I didn’t earn more there. I took home $200 a week, but I spent $180 on food and clothes,” he said.

As a cabdriver, he clears $13 to $45 a day after paying for his cab rental and gas.

Aguirre is definitely a Zen driver. We are stuck in traffic, and all around us cars are honking at police holding us against our light. They are giving preference to Insurgentes Boulevard during rush hour. After the light turns many times, I am ready to reach over and honk Aguirre’s horn myself, but he is calm.

Drivers are usually well-versed in the news and have opinions on everything from the Los Angeles riots to the U.S presidential race. Certainly, they know about the economy because so many drivers are working two jobs. Ramon Flores, a 36-year-old father of three, can’t make ends meet on his government salary. He is a financial analyst for a federal ministry from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., then moonlights in his cab until midnight.

Hard times must be the reason so many cabbies try to squeeze the last nickel out of their fare. (No, no, the meter doesn’t work.) Most cabdrivers would sooner admit to a federal crime than to carrying change.

But then they’d rather skip a fare than accept the slightest criticism of their driving. I remember riding in a kamikaze cab one Saturday afternoon a couple of years ago when I was 8 1/2 months pregnant. The speeding Volkswagen was jerking and jolting like a bronco at a rodeo. I felt compelled to tell the driver that if he continued his kamikaze ways, I just might deliver in the back seat. And wouldn’t that be a mess.

Silence fell over the cab. The driver glared at me in the mirror and slammed on the brakes. I was certain he would throw me out of the car, but I guess my condition got the better of him. He turned on his emergency lights and drove 10 miles an hour the rest of the way.