{"id":19616,"date":"2012-05-22T09:28:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T05:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=19616"},"modified":"2012-05-22T09:28:10","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T05:28:10","slug":"drifting-into-danger-young-saudis-cult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/drifting-into-danger-young-saudis-cult\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Drifting Into Danger’: Young Saudis’ Cult"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Drifting in Saudi Arabia can be another word for \u201cInsha\u2019allah\u201d (God willing) in action\u2026at least in my point of view.\u00a0\u00a0Drifting<\/a>\u00a0is when a driver puts himself and all of those around him at high risk of serious injury or death.\u00a0 Yet, drifting is part of a cult culture in Saudi Arabia.\u00a0 Young men and boys across the Kingdom feel they need to \u201cpass the rites\u201d of drifting in order to be \u201ccool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drifting refers to when a driver of a vehicle, whether 2, 3 or 4 wheeled, drives the vehicle at an angle zig-zagging across the street while only using half the tires and maintain control.\u00a0 In other words, a young Saudi guy in his car may quickly accelerate while making sharp left and right turns of the wheel.\u00a0 This in turn will allow the vehicle to rise up while moving on its side with only one front wheel and one rear wheel still on the ground.<\/p>\n

The Saudi guys will drift in the center of any of Saudi\u2019s cities or in the desert.\u00a0 It does not matter to them if the area in which they decided to drift has other drivers in vehicles or pedestrians in the vicinity.<\/p>\n

They drift for the sport, the adventure and for what they perceive as the prestige.\u00a0 They believe that by drifting they are making themselves attractive and interesting to young women.<\/p>\n

The young men seem to care little about the vehicles in which they drift.\u00a0 Some of these vehicles are quite expensive such as new Hummers or SUV\u2019s.\u00a0 Not all of the vehicles are owned by the young men either.\u00a0 They may be the father\u2019s vehicle or the car used by the family driver.\u00a0 But to the young men, it is simply a toy which allows them to perform their reckless \u201csport.\u201d<\/p>\n

The World Health Organization found\u00a0Saudi Arabia to lead<\/a>\u00a0the WORLD with the highest number of road accident deaths.\u00a0 Road accident deaths are the primary cause of death among Saudi males aged 16 \u2013 36.<\/p>\n

According to Silvio Saadi, a Jeddah-based businessman, speaking to Media Line, \u201cSaudis often try to drift with normal cars and thousands of spectators on the sides of the street,\u201d he said, referring to an informal motor sport in which drivers intentionally over-steer so as to lose traction and drift on the road. \u201cSometimes the car drifts into the spectators, slamming them into buildings along the sidewalk.\u201d<\/p>\n

This video illustrates exactly what I am talking about\u2026<\/p>\n

82525726<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AMERICAN BEDU: Driving in Saudi Arabia is hazardous at the best of times but young Saudi men have introduced an extra element of danger <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":19617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,173,90,482,10,5],"tags":[1050,11683,366,18275,2250],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19616"}],"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\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}