We’ve laughed and we’ve cried over stories in Saudi Arabia and women drivers. Let’s face it: what’s happening in Saudi Arabia is not about driving it’s about women’s rights. There is the No Woman No Drive video from a few years back. We’ve reported on Saudi Arabia holding the record for greatest number of deaths by driving.
Strangely as one Saudi Arabian artist points out with a new map and exhibit called Crash – more women are dying on the roads than men – and women don’t even drive.
The artist is Manal Al-Dowayan who created the above map Crash (2014). It’s a visual of the tragedy told through data points. She writes: “It’s become part of the tea-time talk in the majlis, the women’s area,” she says. “It’s always Oh, did you hear about so-and-so teachers who died in the so-and-so region? Oh those poor things.”
The reason why more women are dying in car crashes despite them not driving is because they often work as teachers in remote areas and since they can’t drive need to cram 6 or 7 together to get to a destination. Simply put: crashes with women involve more fatalities.
Since drifting doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon, the story of Crash will likely get bigger. See the images created by Manal Al-Dowayan below.
Even if they are allowed to drive a believe the burka would decrease visibility enough to cause accidents.
In the civilized world where women do drive, insurance companies have found that statistically, women are safer drivers and have fewer accidents. It’s about time this country got with the times!