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How Uber Is Changing Life For Women In Saudi Arabia
An anonymous reader writes: Being unable to legally drive is hard for many women in Saudi Arabia, especially working women. With notoriously poor mass transit options, and the stigma attached to women riding the bus alone, Uber has changed the life of many Saudi women by giving them greater mobility and independence. While there are no official statistics on how many women use the service, anecdotal evidence suggest that 70% to 90% of Saudi riders are women. "A lot of them, I would say, are young women," says Saudi Arabia general manager Majed Abukhater. "We have some data to show that these women are starting to rely on Uber a lot more for their daily commutes; the proportion of trips that we see in Saudi during the weekday is actually very high relative to other locations. That's just kind of one indicator to tell us that women are really starting to rely on Uber for their daily commutes to work, or to school, or to university."
Eradicating blatant sexism is.
From TFA: "for regulatory reasons, Uber in Saudi Arabia does not work with contracted drivers using their own cars—all Uber rides go through existing companies"
So Uber can follow local laws when they're forced to. Who would've guessed?
The shari-ah holds that women are not allowed to travel alone without a proper male relative acting as chaperone. It is known as maharam or honor law. Women caught in Saudi Arabia without a proper male relative in the company of an unrelated male can be prosecuted. Since all uber drivers are male, (women can't drive in Saudi Arabia) and likely to be unrelated, unless these women have a constant supply of "proper" male relatives, they would not have freedom of movement, uber or no uber. I am no islamic scholar, so not very sure of this: The relatives who can act as chaperones are husbands, brothers, fathers, sons. Not very sure who among the in-laws are allowed to be chaperones as per mahram.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I haven't been in The Kingdom (KSA) in about 7 years, but back then women couldn't go anywhere without an adult male relative (father, brother, or husband) to protect them unless there were no men there. They had massive malls that were staffed and accessible only to women, where they could freely walk and talk with other women wearing western-style clothing if they so wished.
Since only men can legally drive on public roads, how does this work?! Wouldn't they still need to bring an adult male guardian along?
I can only imagine that the autonomous cars will be a hit, but the driving there is truly frighteningly-atrocious. I was very glad to have ex-military drivers with special training and armor-plated SUVs, not for fear of some attack (honestly, they like us more than you might imagine), but because going out on those roads is taking your life into your hands.
Where I live, they mandated that taxis have an on-board camera with a circular buffer of 24 hours. It had been done in response to allegations a cab driver had assaulted a women ... they later found other evidence for it from another source.
They pushed through the law requiring this, against the objections of the cab drivers who though they were being spied on.
When a cab driver was subsequently robbed, and the suspect caught on camera, the cab drivers were all in praise of it.
It turns out, the mandated cameras made it safer for everybody.
Imposing regulations on cab drivers can work, and despite claims to the contrary, isn't always about protecting the interests of cab drivers.
The licensing, inspection, background checks and safety inspections aren't the only benefits to be had.
Stop listening to Uber who keeps saying the lie that regulations the cab drivers have to follow are something the Uber drivers shouldn't be subjected to ... claims that cities are defending the interests of cab companies in enforcing their laws are complete bullshit.
Uber never has been, and never will be the underdogs ... and this never has been, and never will be, about protecting entrenched players.
It's about cities being able to regulate industry players to a minimum standard.
So, if in my city Uber drivers are willing to get commercial licenses, hold the proper insurance and drivers license, and have the same video devices installed for the safety of everybody (you know, like an actual legal cab company) ... I'm sure people would say they're welcome. But Uber claiming they shouldn't have to is bullshit.
As long as Uber insists that they aren't subject to laws, they continue to be lying bastards in my book. They're just a company whose business model is in trying to insist laws regarding taxi companies don't apply to them.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
19 of the hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi. Osama Bin Laden was Saudi. We claimed to have "liberated" Iraq because Saddam's people were oppressed (after the WMD argument fell apart); so, why have we never "exported freedom" to Saudi Arabia?
Exactly what stranglehold do they they have on us (other than having gobs of oil)? And not like that's never stopped us before... I assume they must have Child-Porn pictures with Bush and Cheney. I can't quite understand the thinking of Dubya, assuming he was thinking at all....
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Uber was supposed to be a way to do IGT (intelligent grouping transportation) where the trips of different customers are automatically combined to save money/resources.
Instead, it turned into another war over cheap labor and skirting regulation with no actual ride sharing. Uber are liars and cheats who conduct 99% of their business on public streets.