By Jess Wisloski and Aidan Gardiner
DNAinfo.com New York Reporters
OZONE PARK — The house of the taxi cab driver who died in a fatal three-car crash on the Long Island Expressway was alive with activity Sunday, even while every person inside felt the heavy pain of Mohamed Hussain's absence.
"Everybody loved him," said Jalal Ahmed, one of Hussain's brothers. "He never had an accident," he insisted.
Hussain, 46, who had been a cabbie for 20 years his family said, was driving his own yellow cab when the 12:32 a.m. collision took place near the Maurice Avenue exit on Saturday.
In the torrential downpour, his front bumper ran into the rear of a 1995 Porsche in front of him, sending both cars spinning into the roadway. His cab crossed into the right-hand lane, and was crushed by an oncoming Mack truck that couldn't stop in the rain.
Suzanne Nicholson, 60, who was visiting the city from Utah, also died in the crash, and her 11-year-old grandson was injured, police said.
It was the worst kind of accident, one his family said they never could have imagined.
"Everybody told me, 'Your brother was such a good driver,'" said Ahmed, since friends and coworkers of his brother's had heard about the death. "We just can't believe it," he added.
Hussain is survived by his wife Rohima, and his sons, Adil, 9, and Aahil, 1. He also has two brothers and his mother, who he helped to bring to America, living nearby.
Hussain owned his own cab and medallion, and family members said he drove a night shift from 5 p.m. to midnight, five nights a week. He was the patriarch of the family, many said, since his father had already died, not only because he was the eldest of his brothers, but also because he was the first to emigrate from Bangladesh to the U.S., in 1988.
Within 20 years, he had helped pay the way for all his other family members to come to the U.S., relatives said.
"He had a lovely face. He was always smiling," said Ahmed.
Dozens of family members milled in and out of the family's Ozone Park home, and visited a nearby funeral service that only the men attended.
Friends and relatives talked about how much Hussain adored movies. He'd been excited to see The Avengers, most recently. His greatest obsession was American films, but he still loved Bangladeshi and Hindi movies, too, family members said. A mammoth collection of DVDs were stacked in a living room shelf.
A cousin, Shirin Rashed, 40, who said she was very close with Hussain, said he was one of her best friends when she first came to New York from London. He was the only family member she knew here at first.
"He's not a short temptered person," she said. "He's very calm and very social. His hobby was to be with his family. Any chance he got, he'd sit and watch movies with his son or wife," she said.
"He will be missed," she added. "I feel very lonely already. Can you imagine how the wife feels?"
She said Hussain was the breadwinner for the family, and loved being able to provide for others.
"He was a very people-loving person. Everyone depended on him."
