The Middle East Media Research Institute says that while Saudi women will soon be allowed to drive, the kingdom has been slow to implement necessary measures such as driver training, says Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
The decreed by the Saudi king allowing women to drive will take effect June 24. Authorities have been making adjustments and changes in policies and practices, MEMRI reported.
But a Saudi columnist says it's not enough.
"Saudi academic and women's rights activist Dr. Hotoon Al-Fassi, who writes for the daily Al-Riyadh, complained that the measures being taken are inadequate and that the authorities are creating difficulties for women who wish to drive – although, she underlines it has been proven around the world that women are safer drivers than men," reported MEMRI.
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"Writing in the press and on her Twitter account, she noted, for example, that not enough driving schools for women have been opened, and that the task of teaching women to drive has for some illogical reason been assigned to universities. Moreover, she said, women are charged six times as much as men for driving lessons, suggesting that some people are trying to make profits at their expense."
In her writings, translated by MEMRI, she states: "Women in Saudi Arabia are looking forward anxiously to Shawwal 10, 1439H [June 24, 2018] when they will be allowed to sit behind the wheel. On that particular day, the Saudi women will end their dependence on their private drivers and begin their normal lives in which they will not be waiting for a diver to drive them to their destination and back and drive them on errands. It would also end their dependence on the driver, who might have gone out with no one knowing when he would come back. The women will no longer be seeing a car parked outside the building [and have to look at its driver with] scorn, unable to touch [the car]. They will not be calculating their money to pay the limousine, the taxi or the app-share cars."
But she said she's pessimistic about the accommodations made so far.
For the rest of this report, and more, please go to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.