Anyone who has ever driven in Atlanta knows the challenges: the traffic, construction, other drivers concentrating on their cellphones rather than the road, and all those streets named Peachtree.

Add to that a passenger who is in a hurry to get from the airport to an appointment somewhere north of Buckhead, is a stranger in town and doesn't speak English.

LEITA COWART/Special (ENLARGE)

Sammy Edwards, a driver supervisor for Checker Cab, drove taxis in London before moving to Atlanta. Like 72 percent of Checker's drivers, he is from Nigeria.

Those are just a few of the challenges faced by Atlanta's taxi drivers.

And one more thing: Many of the drivers are immigrants themselves.

It's a potential clash of cultures. But the city of Atlanta, taxi companies and drivers are working to take the clash out of the point of contact.

Most of the time, it boils down to the advice your mother gave you: Be polite.

"Taxi drivers are the first and last impression of our city," said Debra F. Cannon, an associate professor and director of Georgia State University's Cecil B. Day School of Hospitality. "They spend more concentrated time with visitors than do hotel desk clerks or servers in a restaurant."

Sammy Edwards, a driver supervisor for Checker Cab, has been behind the wheel in Atlanta. The native of Nigeria is a veteran, having driven taxis in London before coming to Atlanta in 1986.

Here, he learned the basics from a course required of would-be cab drivers by the city of Atlanta's Division of Taxicabs and Vehicles for Hire. Annual training is mandatory.

It includes lessons on Atlanta geography, such as landmarks and map-reading; communication skills; road signs; and people signs — the nonverbal signals people use even when they all speak the same language.

"In different cultures, if you look at a person in a certain way, it means different things. It can offend," Edwards said.

The Teachers' Asian Studies Summer Institute at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, points out that ordinary gestures in one culture can range from merely improper to rude in another.

For example, while the thumbs-up gesture means approval or a request for a ride in America, it is a rude gesture in Nigeria and means the number one in most of Europe, the institute noted.

Edwards has experienced the change in culture.

"It wasn't easy," he said. "My culture is different. I had to adjust to the situation and make it work for me."

Besides the city course, Checker Cab has additional training for its drivers, such has how to help people who use wheelchairs, said Richard Hewatt, the third-generation owner of the company.

Checker helps, too, with Global Positioning System units in its cabs, Hewatt said. And the company maintains a list of drivers and employees who speak different languages; a round-the-clock dispatch office can put these people in touch with cab drivers and their passengers.

When Atlanta hosted the Olympics in 1996, Hewatt said, the company's cabs carried rate cards in several languages.

"They seemed to come in handy," he said.

Cannon helped develop the classes for taxi drivers. She explained that the classes stress service but also include city laws and regulations and safe-driving tips.

Drivers should be "open and provide customer service to any and every passenger," she said.

That includes developing skills in understanding, language and communication; listening; and asking questions.

"Many of our drivers speak with an accent," she noted. Sometimes, that can be a barrier to passengers who don't understand that English is the driver's second language.

City regulations require that, to receive a permit to operate a taxi, a driver must be proficient in English; be at least 18; have had a Georgia driver's license for at least a year; have proof of citizenship or the proper residency and work status; complete and pass the driver's class; have no felony convictions; and have a job lined up with a cab company.

Just because taxi drivers are required to speak English, that doesn't mean passengers are.

Edwards said drivers are trained to use notepads to communicate with people when there is a language barrier. Sometimes, just pointing to the destination on a map works, too.

It's not just a driver-passenger culture difference. Hewatt said 72 percent of Checker's drivers are Nigerian. That's one reason he hired Edwards as a supervisor, so he can relate to people from his country.

Cab drivers don't work directly for the cab companies, Hewatt said. They are independent contractors who lease the cabs.

"We don't tell them when or where to go to work," Hewatt said.

All Checker Cabs receive dispatches, which drivers can accept or turn down, he said.

Typically, calls are from local residents who need rides, not from visitors or conventioneers. Checker Cabs rarely wait in taxi lines at the downtown hotels or at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

Wossen Alemu does depend on visitors.

The driver for US Taxicab, waiting for fares outside the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel downtown, said, "We try to approach people properly."

He is from Ethiopia and has been driving a cab in Atlanta for six years.

While the city's training helps, he said: "We are veteran drivers. This is our job, and we know it."