Women in Saudi Arabia have been proven to be more responsible drivers than men.
Since the ban lift on women driving in the kingdom officially took effect in June 2018, women have barely violated traffic rules. Though a few committed some violations at first, the number of recorded cases has drastically dropped since.
Sources in the country's traffic courts revealed that some novice female drivers committed a number of violations in the weeks after the ban lift. The Saudi Justice Ministry's statistics state that "there were 15,175 traffic cases against women in courts consisting of 4,459 in Makkah alone."
However, this number has dropped by 7 percent in the past 11 months as women have adjusted to the country's traffic laws.
In a statement to StepFeed, social worker Maysaa spoke of the reasons behind the drop in traffic violations committed by women.
"Regardless of gender, no responsible driver would want to break traffic laws and therefore as women adjusted to driving in the kingdom, numbers of violations they committed decreased. However, I don't think this is the only reason behind the drop," she said.
"If you ask women in Saudi Arabia what bothered them most in the first days after they started driving in their own country, they'd tell you it was those doubting their ability to drive and mocking them," she added.
Shortly after the ban on women driving was lifted in Saudi Arabia, someone launched a hashtag to mock women's ability to drive. Mayssa believes this played a part in pushing women to be more vigilant in respecting traffic laws.
"Thousands made jokes about women causing traffic accidents and not being able to abide by laws. I think in some sense women tried to prove them wrong and have succeeded at that," she explained.
Saudi women won their right to drive in 2017
In September 2017, Saudi Arabia's King Salman issued a royal decree granting women their right to drive. The order lifted a long-standing and heavily criticized ban on women driving in country.
Months later, the ban lift officially took effect as women were finally able to hit the country's roads in June 2018. Today, thousands of Saudi women are registered drivers and millions more are waiting for a turn to get their licenses processed.