Таксист остановился перед зеброй и пропустил женщину с ребёнком.

No. In everyday Russian, зебра can also mean a zebra crossing / pedestrian crossing because of the striped markings on the road.

So in this sentence, перед зеброй means in front of the crosswalk, not in front of an animal.

This is a very common colloquial use.

Because the preposition перед requires the instrumental case.

• зебра = nominative
• зеброй = instrumental

So:

• перед домом = in front of the house
• перед машиной = in front of the car
• перед зеброй = in front of the crosswalk

This is just a case pattern you need to learn with the preposition перед.

The verb here is остановиться, which means to stop.

The -ся form often makes a verb intransitive or gives it a meaning like stop oneself / come to a stop, though in modern Russian you usually just learn it as a separate verb.

Compare:

• остановить = to stop something/someone
  
  • Таксист остановил машину. = The taxi driver stopped the car.
• остановиться = to stop
  
  • Таксист остановился. = The taxi driver stopped.

So in your sentence, the driver himself came to a stop, which is why остановился is used.

That is the marker of the past tense in Russian.

Russian past tense verbs agree with the subject in gender and number:

• masculine singular: -л
• feminine singular: -ла
• neuter singular: -ло
• plural: -ли

Since таксист is masculine singular, the verbs are:

• остановился
• пропустил

If the subject were feminine, you would get:

• Таксистка остановилась и пропустила...

Both verbs describe completed single actions in a sequence:

• остановился = stopped
• пропустил = let pass / yielded to

This is why Russian uses the perfective aspect here:

• остановиться — perfective
• пропустить — perfective

The sentence is telling a simple event: first he stopped, then he let them cross. That naturally favors perfective verbs.

If you used imperfective forms, the meaning would shift toward process, repetition, habit, or background description.

Here пропустил means let pass, allowed to go ahead, or yielded to.

So the idea is that the taxi driver stopped and allowed the woman and child to cross.

This verb is very common in traffic contexts:

• Водитель пропустил пешехода. = The driver let the pedestrian go first.
• Пропустите машину. = Let the car through.

Be careful: пропустить has several meanings in Russian, including:

• miss a class/train
• skip something
• let through / let pass

The context tells you which meaning is intended.

Because женщину is the accusative case, and it is the direct object of пропустил.

The driver let whom pass?
→ женщину

Forms:

• женщина = nominative
• женщину = accusative singular

So:

• Женщина идёт. = The woman is walking.
  (женщина is the subject)
• Таксист пропустил женщину. = The taxi driver let the woman pass.
  (женщину is the object)

Because the preposition с meaning with takes the instrumental case.

So:

• ребёнок = nominative
• ребёнком = instrumental

That gives:

• женщина с ребёнком = a woman with a child

Important: с can take different cases with different meanings. For example:

• с ребёнком = with the child → instrumental
• с ребёнка = from the child → genitive

Here the meaning is clearly with, so the instrumental is required.

Grammatically, it means the woman with a child.

The phrase с ребёнком modifies женщину and describes her: she is accompanied by a child.

In real-world meaning, the driver is obviously yielding to the whole pair, but the Russian phrase is built as:

• пропустил [женщину с ребёнком]

So the object is a noun phrase meaning a woman with a child.

Yes, ё is a separate letter in Russian, and here it shows the correct pronunciation:

• ребёнок
• ребёнком

The ё is always stressed.

In many printed texts, Russians often write е instead of ё, so you may sometimes see:

• ребенком

But it is still understood as ребёнком in pronunciation.

For learners, it is very helpful when ё is written, because it removes ambiguity.

No, Russian word order is fairly flexible, though the version you have is the most neutral and natural for simple narration:

Таксист остановился перед зеброй и пропустил женщину с ребёнком.

This order presents the information in a straightforward sequence:

1. subject
2. first action
3. location
4. second action
5. object

You could change the order for emphasis, for example:

• Перед зеброй таксист остановился и пропустил женщину с ребёнком.

That puts more focus on where he stopped.

So the word order is not completely fixed, but the original sentence is the most standard one.

Usually yes. Таксист is the normal everyday word for taxi driver.

It is a simple agent noun built from такси. In neutral English, taxi driver is the best translation.

Russian also has more formal ways to describe the profession, but таксист is the common word you are most likely to hear in ordinary speech.