Driving Laws in Saudi Arabia — DipNomadic Life

Let me preface and stress, that what I am writing is just MY opinion. While I was writing my last post on the troubles I’m having trying to find a means to get to and from work, I found various articles and reports about the women driving ban in KSA. I became curious and wanted to educate myself.

What started with cultural and religious tradition of women not driving then became institutionalized in 1991. Following a pro-female driving campaign, a Saudi cleric issued a decree citing women’s driving promotes of ‘sinful’ practices - being alone with a member of the opposite sex, unveiling the face, careless and free intermixing of sexes, and committing adultery. This stirred the preverbal pot of the kingdom’s large conservative religious base so much that the Ministry of Interior was pressured to endorse it. And this is why women aren’t allowed to have a drivers’ license and therefore cannot legally drive.

Fast forward to now. Perhaps you’ve heard about Saudi women's driving activist Manal al-Sharif and her book, Daring To Drive? KSA is the last country in the world to not allow women to drive, which has been made it a topic of ongoing debate for years, even among Saudi princes.

Saudis are constantly debating this topic. It’s a huge issue given the economic realities in KSA. Men (fathers, husbands, brother) who are the guardians all women are expected to financially support and drive women or provide the means for transport (private driver). If a man is out working, even if it is a typical 9-5 job, how is he driving kids to and from school, as well as running errands to keep the household functioning? OR how is he supposed to afford a driver that costs $750/month when he’s trying to make ends meet? Currently, 20% of Saudis live below the poverty line of $480/month. The drop in oil and gas prices has hit the country bad. So badly that some people are even taking pay cuts.

With the need to boost the economy there is been a lot of news reports speculating the possibility of women being able to drive soon. I just don’t think it’s going to happen though and here’s why…

One of the many aspects of Vision 2030 is to increase Saudi Arabia’s workforce by 1.3 million women. Awesome, right? When I first read that I thought this must mean women will be allowed to drive if they’re going to be working. Until I read that Uber had raised $3.5 billion, on June 1 2016, from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s main investment fund, in one of the largest-ever investments into a privately held start-up. This is great for getting women to work, but what about women driving themselves?

The Uber announcement came literally a month after MbS, the then deputy crown prince, said “So far the society is not persuaded (by women driving) – and it has negative influence – but we stress that it is up to the Saudi society,” and he added that it is not “a religious issue as much as it is an issue that relates to the community itself that either accepts it or refuses it,” Gulf News reported in April 2016.

The investment in driver hailing app services aims to bring workers into the private sector by creating 450,000 positions by 2020. Uber and Careem say they will create up to 200,000 jobs for Saudi men by end of 2018. If all goes according to plan, this should also help the Vision 2030 goal of increasing the female workforce by five percentage points in the next five years to 28 percent.

So it makes complete sense that MbS, the now crown prince, and the Saudi government will be protecting their $3.5 billion investment in hopes of economic growth for the kingdom and attaining the goals set for 2030. A large part of the vision is about diversifying the country’s economic portfolio so that there is much less reliance on oil. I get that more job opportunities needs to be created for both men and women. It’s disheartening to think that those jobs might be at the expense of women’s rights.

I hate to be a naysayer because I would love nothing more than progress to be made in the kingdom. I’m only here for two years, I have the means to hire a driver, and I can come and go as I please because J doesn't approve my every move. My heart goes out to these women who have entirely different laws to abide by, who want to work, who just want to get to the grocery store or take their kids to a doctor appointment without having to be driven. For all this I would happily be proved wrong.

I know in previous posts I’ve touched on the fact that women can’t legally drive in KSA, but as I was WhatsApp-ing with a friend I realized that I haven’t delved into how convoluted the situation really is for me, especially now that I’m going to be working.

To give you some perspective for Saudi women, most have private drivers; 87% of Saudi families have private drivers, according to a Public Opinion Unit survey done in 2014. Taxicabs are an option, but aren’t safe. Saudi Arabia is a very class based society so most Saudi women, with the means to have a private driver, would never take a cab. In fact, cabs are seen a something only poor people use. Recently changing the marketplace are Uber and Careem, which state that 80% of customers in KSA are women.

Some of you might be thinking, what’s the big deal? Adrienne, you have plenty of options to use an Embassy driver, hire a private driver, get a cab, or call an Uber to get to and from the office. Right???

WRONG. For me the general rules and practices are entirely different.

First, I actually don’t have an Embassy driver at my disposal. The motor pool drivers are available to us to use until our car arrives, but I can’t use them for regular ongoing personal use, like driving me to work.

Cabs are ruled out entirely for Embassy staff and family members. We have no idea who those drivers are and certainly don’t want them coming on and off the DQ, seeing where were we live, trying to creep around or attempting to get any information. The potential security issues are a nightmare.

A taxi-haling app seems like a good alternative since the drivers are vetted by the companies. And technically we are cleared to use UberBlack when we’re out and about in Riyadh. Security at the DQ gates can vary though. Some guards may let a driver on to pick me up or I might have to meet them at 1 of 2 gates, which are both over a mile from our villa. I’ve heard stories about people having to go pick up their delivered food at one of the gates because security won’t let them on!

And hiring a driver is more complicated than you’d think. In KSA there are a lot of non-Saudis living and working here, making up about at 1/3 of the total population. These people are sponsored by their employer to work in-country. We, I mean J, sponsors our nanny because she’s Filipina. I can’t because women aren’t allowed to sponsor employees. Technically, J is my “guardian” and I can’t do anything without him or his approval. So unless I can find a Saudi driver, which would be rare and he probably wouldn’t agree to drive me anyway being that I’m a woman, J would have to sponsor this person. Sponsorship can be 6 000 SAR, plus monthly salary could be 3 000 SAR. This is the full-time rate, regardless of the fact that he’d only be actually working about 45 minutes a day!

So this then begs the question, why am I figuring this out? Since my company wants me to work here, why wouldn’t this be part of my work contract? Surely they know how to deal with this. Well, not really.

As I mentioned before, there is only one other full-time female employee in our office. She’s a single woman living with her family and already has a full-time driver for her to take her anywhere she needs, not just work, because that’s how things are done here since WOMEN AREN’T ALLOWED TO DRIVE.

I have one last option, a driver hire app that covers the cost of sponsorship. J got it approved from the security office so now I just need to get a driver and hope he gets cleared because I just need a ride to work, which I never imagined would be this tough of a problem to solve! Wish me luck!!