Dr. Çetiner’s Blogs (Prof. Dr. Beytullah Gültekin Çetiner)

The question of whether Ladies can drive cars is very hot discussion in Saudi Arabia. It is another issue to discuss.

This topic is about the car accidents and other important problem when driving a car in Saudi Arabia.

I have seen some statistics about the accident rates in Saudi Arabia. According to stats:- Saudi Arabia has the highest rate of car accidents per capita in the world. As known, Saudi Arabia not only in the whole world but also in Islamic world, is one of the unique countries where women, who are proven to be more careful drivers anywhere in the world, are in the car but never behind the wheel.

Car accident reports litter the Saudi dailies, and every day dozens of innocent people die at the hands of reckless drivers in Saudi Arabia (not only Saudi drivers but also foreigners). Listen to one foreigner who drives in Saudi Arabia: I am a very careful driver obeying all the traffic rules in my country. But when I drive herein I become one of the traffic monsters on the road.’

In Engineering Management classes, in the topic of decision making under risk, I always ask the probability of having an accident to decide whether we should insure our car, there is always smiling on the faces of engineering students. Some students always answer this as 100%.

I never saw or heard a place that a 9-year-old boy (of course not girl) is allowed to drive a car on the road. The traffic policeman sees the boy driving the car but acts as if he has not seen him. Since driving becomes a habit like driving a bike or playing footbal from the early childhood, you cannot teach someone to drive his car to go on the right direction and obey the rules. When you drive on a one-way road, you should always expect a boy or an old person (they do the same thing) coming from the opposite wrong direction. You wait for the green light to be on to pass the road but the driver behind you keeps horning and shouting at you questioning why you don’t pass the road. This is very clear evidence that he does not know anything about the traffic rules.

So before discussing whether ladies can drive or not, this is a major problem to be solved..