The only solution she has found to her problem is to hire a driver. She pays him SR1,500 a month (about $400) to take her to and from work, six days a week. She shares the vehicle with others in the same situation. Each pay the same monthly transport fee.
Fadli had purchased a car on installments, but she encountered many problems in finding reliable drivers that she gave up. Her car now sits in the driveway.
"Drivers are demanding. I consulted an office to help me get a driver, but they have not found one yet," Fadli told Arab News. "I would need to provide a room for the driver where he can live. From a security angle, it is not legal to have a person in my house who is not under my sponsorship."
She says she's also worried that if she hires a driver on her own, he might turn out to be one living in the country illegally, or might use her car for illicit purposes.
Since Fadli can't find a reliable private driver, she must rely on a man with a car who has several demanding clients — which, of course, causes him at times to drive recklessly. She recalls a time when the driver needed to get from one part of the city to another.
"He needed at least 15 minutes to drop me at King’s Road in the north of Jeddah and then go to the other customer in Bani Malik. Since he was in a rush he decided to drive recklessly and basically jumped his car from the far right side of the street to the left to avoid a traffic light and take a quick U-turn."
She said the driver met a light accident during this maneuver, and that she was "in complete pain for a couple of days."
Jameela Abid, another Saudi woman with a job who has to depend on drivers, said the driver she uses has such a lucrative business shuttling Saudi workingwomen and university students around the town that he recently bought a new van.
“I always thought he was poor, especially that his only income is what he gets from us, the workingwomen and the university students," she said. "He takes SR1,600 from me each month because I have two shifts. However, I never thought he could save enough money to buy a new vehicle and also bring his family to live here with him. It just proves that such a job is very profitable.”
A driver who preferred to remain anonymous said he has been driving girls and women for six years. He arrived in the Kingdom 15 years ago to work as a driver for a livery service. Then he met a Saudi man who needed a driver for his daughters. He was offered SR700 a month. Today he drives a relatively new Camry and that he loves his job as a driver because he decides which customers to pick up and sets his own schedule.
"If a Saudi wants to have a driver he has to spend a lot of money, including for the visa, fees paid to the recruitment office, getting a room for him, food and drink and a return ticket every two years on top of the SR800 a month salary," he said, pointing out that this was the reason why drivers like him are in demand.
Another driver, a 33-year-old foreign resident, said a domestic driver will earn about SR1,200 a month while he makes up to SR5,000.
With a country full of people like Fadli — dependent on others for their transportation — being a freelance driver has proven to be a relatively lucrative business.
