Luis Francisco Perez had planned to celebrate his 30th birthday today with a cookout, but instead, the livery driver and father of a baby boy is being mourned.

Perez, a Dominican immigrant, was fatally shot in his car in The Bronx on Friday. He was the sixth of seven livery drivers to lose their lives to armed thugs this year.

“He worked hard so that he could go back home and buy a house for his son,” said his wife, Anna Maria Estrella, 25, who was so distraught, she refused to look at Perez’s body – lying in a dark wood casket lined with white satin – at his wake yesterday.

“I can’t, I can’t – I don’t want to see him. I can’t look at him,” wailed Estrella, the mother of Perez’s 14-month-old son.

“She’s not facing reality right now,” said Fernando Mateo, president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers. “She’s just trying to understand why the person who killed him didn’t just take his car and belongings.”

Perez’s casket was flanked by three huge floral arrangements from livery companies, including the Premium Car Service, for which he worked, and the wake was attended by drivers from all over the city.

“He was a person that would get along with everyone,” said Juan Perez, who also drives for Manhattan-based Premium. “Like everyone, he was afraid, because you never really know who is going to hurt you out there.”

More than 3000 of the city’s 41,000 livery drivers are expected to accompany Perez’s body from the funeral home to Kennedy Airport tomorrow morning. He’ll be buried in his native town, Puerto Plata.