I wonder if those responsible for organizing traffic awareness campaigns and programs aimed at educating motorists and pedestrians have realized the role of women in the chaos characteristic of our streets and the accidents which occur there all too often.
It is of course true that women do not drive in the Kingdom but the great majority of drivers here take their orders from women. And it is also true that once a woman is seated in her car, she begins issuing contradictory orders which she demands the driver carry out. Just think of the sheer number of foreign drivers in the streets of Riyadh — no exact numbers are available — from early morning until late at night and you can begin to see the magnitude of the problem.
I wonder if any studies have been conducted to determine the role of women in the chaos on our roads. This is important since, in many cases, foreign workers brought here to do other jobs end up behind the wheel as family drivers. Whoever is not happy with his sponsor as well as those who do not like the work for which they were recruited find no difficulty in finding employment as drivers. Families desperate for a driver will find themselves forced to accept them. A woman who discovers that her driver was originally recruited to work as a plumber, a salesman, a cleaner, a farmer or a shepherd is left with two difficult choices: Agree to hire the man and risk the possible unpleasant consequences or refuse and find herself in a more critical situation, especially if she is a working woman.
It is a drama in which women play the leading role. It starts each morning with fleets of chauffeur-driver cars clogging the streets, blocking the way in front of schools, offices, hospitals and other public places. It all depends on the woman’s general mood and it is how she behaves once she is in the car that determines whether things will be all right that day or whether all will end in disaster.
If the driver finds that the woman in the back seat is in a bad mood, he braces himself for trouble. Such behavior definitely impacts upon the poor man who, knowing he cannot answer back, usually resorts to the only thing he can do — stepping hard on the accelerator. In some cases, a driver may express his anger in words, threatening to quit if the humiliation continues. The result in both cases is, if not catastrophic, often unfortunate.
Our streets swarm with drivers, both wise and ignorant of basic safety rules. Many of these are controlled and directed by women. The people responsible for traffic awareness campaigns should turn their attention to this matter. They should move to educate women on how to drive safely while in the back seat.
