So several weeks ago when driving for ladies in Saudi became legal there were many kinds of confusion and reaction. Naturally, there was the extreme Muslim bunch who thought the world was about to end and there was liberal Muslim bunch whose ideologies were like western ideologies. I am active on Twitter. Some Muslim men on twitter started to complain about the fact that accident rates would go high since women can drive now! I was shocked that these types of sexism still exist in our communities.

I am a Muslim girl myself. I love my religion. I am a full-time hijabi. I am currently pursuing my degree in mechanical engineering and minor in automotive engineering. Since the driving issue is somewhat related to my area of study I was curious. A few days ago I was reading a research article published by some American researchers in the journal of adolescent’s health.

Research says that most dangerous and risky drivers on road are males age 18-25. And I quote “Several studies have reported relatively higher KRD rates among adolescent males than females”. KRD is kinematic risky driving. The analysis indicated that CNC rates for both novice adolescents and experienced adult drivers did not differ significantly according to driver gender, time of day, or road surface conditions (data available upon request). CNC is crash near crash. While KRD rates for adolescent females decreased with time and were significantly lower the last quarter compared to the first quarter of independent driving (IRR = .63, CI = .57, .69), KRD rates of male adolescents did not follow this trend and were slightly higher in last quarter compared to the first quarter (IRR = 1.11, CI = 1.02, 1.21). Finally, during independent driving KRD rates of adolescents were consistently higher than adult drivers of the same gender (females: IRR = 3.62, CI = 2.49, 5.27; males: IRR = 4.46, CI = 2.87, 6.92).

Why can’t we be a little compassionate towards another gender? Why do we have to put someone down to feel powerful? I think we are better than that or at least we have the potential to be better than that.