Saudi Arabia Prepares to Lift Female Driving Ban

As June 24^th approaches, officials in Saudi Arabia are scrambling to make sense of what the end of a ban on women driving in that country will mean for factors such as oil demand, traffic congestion, labor demand, vehicle sales, and, ultimately, public health. With the potential number of new drivers expected to explode — assuming that even a fraction of the 6 million women in that country of driving age will now obtain licenses — these are not unreasonable questions.

According to the report:

"Driving in Saudi Arabia has long been a male-only preserve, and one in which chaotic traffic and risky habits combined to render the kingdom's roadways among the deadliest in the world," the authors wrote. "Allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia represents a major achievement in social freedom and mobility for millions of women in the kingdom, although the lifting of the ban was preceded by arrests of more than a dozen activists, mainly women who had protested the ban on driving. For social scientists, the sudden addition of millions of new drivers of a single gender to a country's roadways provides a unique natural experiment for the study of gender effects on driving behavior, energy demand and public health."

The authors concluded, "Adding millions of new drivers into a chaotic and congested road network, one of the world's deadliest, will undoubtedly bring unnecessary tragedy. Saudi policymakers have taken a bold and long-overdue step in lifting the ban. One hopes that the Saudi government launches complementary policy changes that address driving habits that have made the kingdom such a dangerous place to operate a vehicle."

Now as the day approaches and as women prepare for the chance to drive, I am reminded of living in an American/British compound in that country during the 1980s. Though my mother never drove even before we lived there — having opted instead to take the subway and other modes of transport throughout New York City before our time spent in the desert — I have to wonder what such a change means for the women who never had the choice.

Considering that it will improve women’s access to employment and child care opportunities, as well as increasing the demand for new vehicles, I imagine the results will only be to the benefit of that country.

That said, I can’t help but also be thankful that this ban was lifted after we left the country.

Though my mother was eventually forced to learn how to drive once we left Saudi Arabia, it wasn’t exactly a match-made in heaven — breathy panic attacks whenever she was required to merge onto a highway or flop sweat at the mere mention of a left-hand turn, never mind totaling a days-old car in her own yard, going under 30 mph. Had the ban been lifted during our time there, her impact on the Saudi landscape would have been...let’s say a lasting one. One that would have likely resulted in the reinstatement of the ban.

(Just a note: This blog post is not an indictment of women drivers but rather an indictment of my mother as a driver, which, thankfully she is no more.)