By Muhammad Al-Kadoumi

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

JAZAN – Fifteen months after the government’s historic decision allowing women to drive, there is no facility here to teach women on ways to get behind the wheel. The absence of any such facility prompted Suha Khouli to train several girls and women to drive cars on streets in planned districts and several other locations.

While busy training women in one of the planned districts, she told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that she has trained 53 women in one month amid a big demand from women and girls.

She stressed that Jazan is one of the regions in dire need of women’s driving schools.

She added that many women go to open areas outside the urban zones to learn how to drive due to the nonexistence of driving schools for women.

She asserted that this is contrary to the promises made by the Traffic Department and the Ministry of Education earlier to set up a driving school for women.

Suha Khouli added that matters are moving slowly and there are no serious attempts in the offing to set up such a school.

She added: “We tried to search for the reason, but each authority is putting the blame on the other. There is no hope that the issue will be resolved soon. Is it believable that the whole region is lagging behind all the other regions?”

Suha said that she learned how to drive 11 months ago and she went to Jeddah to be issued a driving license due to the overcrowding and long wait in Jazan.

She added that she rented a privately-owned site for teaching women theoretically to drive cars and then a date is set to start practical training. She said the hall can accommodate about 50 female trainees while the number of female applicants per week exceeds 100.