{"id":12455,"date":"2011-11-20T13:08:39","date_gmt":"2011-11-20T09:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=12455"},"modified":"2011-11-20T13:08:39","modified_gmt":"2011-11-20T09:08:39","slug":"one-saudi-woman-drives-badly-so-that-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/one-saudi-woman-drives-badly-so-that-means\/","title":{"rendered":"One Saudi Woman Drives Badly So That Means…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It must have been a really slow news day for the Saudi Gazette and other newspapers in the region.<\/p>\n

Articles with titles like “Speeding Saudi Woman\u2019s Bentley Impounded in Dubai”<\/a> and “Saudi Woman Fined for Speeding in Dubai”<\/a> appeared in national Saudi newspapers and in Emirates 24\/7 News. In fact the Emirates newspaper even published a lovely photo of the speeding Saudi businesswoman, Maha Makki.<\/p>\n

Here is an excerpt from the Saudi Gazette article:<\/p>\n

Maha Makki, a Saudi businesswoman, ran several red lights while speeding in her Bentley car in Dubai because she had an important business appointment she didn\u2019t want to miss.<\/em><\/p>\n

The traffic police however did not accept her explanation. She was fined heavily and her car has been impounded for 60 days.<\/em><\/p>\n

Maha says she did not notice the red lights because she was in a hurry and that it was the first traffic violation she has ever had in her life. \u201cMaybe I was driving a bit fast,\u201d she said.<\/em><\/p>\n

And why exactly is this news? Because the driver was a Saudi woman – no other reason. It’s as if these newspapers are saying, “See? This is why we don’t let women drive in Saudi Arabia. Women are bad drivers.”<\/p>\n

If this is truly news, where are all the articles which involve Saudi men who have committed traffic infractions? Because when men speed and run red lights, it’s not news – but it is when WOMEN do!<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia ranks dead last in the entire world when it comes to traffic safety<\/a> – gee, I wonder if that could be because only men are permitted to drive in KSA? It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.<\/p>\n

These newspapers should be ashamed of themselves for turning this incident into propaganda, for supporting discrimination against Saudi women, and for perpetuating the myth that women are not safe drivers. I am totally disgusted.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUSIE OF ARABIA: If one Saudi Arabian woman runs a red light and accumulates a huge number of speeding fines then it follows that all Saudi women are bad drivers. What nonsense. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":12456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,173,90,482,10,5],"tags":[197,18275,3882,18316,133,177],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}