“This is a daily predicament. Whenever I have women passengers, I find more than one car with young men inside following me. They want to talk to the passengers or pass over their mobile phone numbers to them,” a Pakistani limousine driver told Arab News. He did not want his name to be published.
The drivers were unanimous in their complaint that the young men have no qualms about tailgating them. “This act is very annoying to us. It may also cause us financial losses sometimes if they hit our cars,” a driver said.
Ramadan Ali, a Yemeni taxi driver, said incidents of young men following women in his limousine have become a daily trend, especially when he is taking girls to malls or supermarkets.
“When these young men do not get any response from the passengers, they start throwing empty bottles at my windshield to force me to stop. Most of them drive luxurious or sports cars,” he said.
Ramadan said he was now wary of transporting women, especially those who are young and alone.
“I have fears that they may try to stop me by force and threaten to hurt me if I do not ask the passengers to disembark. This actually happened to an Indian colleague of mine,” he said.
With Jeddah now bustling with visitors on their summer vacation and attending the Jeddah Ghair festival, there is a great demand for limousines. Many Saudis and expatriates have opted to spend their summer holidays inside the Kingdom due to ongoing political events in some Arab countries that are also popular tourist destinations. Many women vacationers prefer to use taxis during their trips to the malls and supermarkets instead of asking their husbands. “Most of us prefer to take women because they pay us well. They are willing to pay double the price for a trip not usually costing more than SR15,” a driver said.
Some limousine drivers prefer to rent their vehicles to their families on a monthly basis. They are on call any time during the day and night and receive a monthly payment of SR1,000 in return.
The drivers complain that some young men were so forward that they would not hesitate to open the backseat door and drop pieces of paper with their phone numbers written on them on the passengers’ laps. Some of them would even ask the women to leave the limousine and ride with them in their cars.
“A number of young men in their own car followed me until I dropped my passengers at their destination. I did not stay to see what happened next for fear that they might turn against me,” a driver said.
Abbas Zarie, an Egyptian driver, said he once managed to escape a group of young men who were following his car but they spotted him again and banged his car from behind forcing him to stop. “Such incidents make us always fearful and skeptical,” he said.
