JEDDAH — Since women started driving in June 2018, they have committed as many as 8,772 traffic violations, the Arabic daily Al-Watan reported on Tuesday, quoting industry sources. The sources said in the last two months alone, women drivers had to face a total of 701 lawsuits at traffic courts over accidents they had caused. They said the women drivers caused heavy damage and had to go to the courts because their victims refused to accept compensations they were offered. Asem Al-Mullah, a lawyer and a legal consultant, said accidents caused by women drivers accounted for about 8 percent of all traffic accidents committed since last June. He attributed the accidents to the fact that not many women were good drivers and some of them were not able to obtain driving licenses. Mullah said the women drivers banged other cars from behind, hit pavements or ran into lampposts. He said some women drivers who ran the red lights were detained for three days in traffic police detention centers assigned for them. Traffic courts became operational all over the Kingdom a few months back and they are considering all kinds of traffic violations. According to the sources, there were 2,537 traffic lawsuits against women in Makkah province, 2,216 in Riyadh, 864 in the Eastern Province, 781 in Asir and 477 in Madinah. Meanwhile, women in Makkah were traveling long distances to obtain driving licenses. The women told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that they would go either to Tabuk or Cairo where it was easy for them to get driving licenses. They said they opted to travel such distances because the driving school in Makkah is crowded and it took a long time to accept them. They said they went to the school, paid the fees and waited for a long time to be called for the training. The women also said the fees they had paid were not refundable. Nawal Al-Lahyani, a woman from Makkah, said she made a number of appointments through the electronic website of the school but was never called to come for training. "After waiting for three months in vain, I traveled to Cairo and obtained a driving license in just two days," she said. Firyal Maghrabi, a woman from Jeddah, said she paid the SR2,525 fee at the driving school but was not called for training and her money was not refunded either. Maghrabi said she, her sisters and some other friends travelled to Cairo where they obtained their driving licenses but had to incur a lot of expenses for travel, accommodation and others. The women asked the concerned authorities to put an end to their predicament by opening more driving schools for women in all regions of the country.
