Saudi woman driver hurt after defying ban

A young woman in Saudi Arabia who defied ultra-conservative kingdom's ban on women driving was injured when the car span out of control and plunged into a stream, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The unnamed woman in her 20s "stole" her brother's car on Sunday, picked up a female friend and drove at high speed through a town in the Eastern Province before losing control of the vehicle, Al-Riyadh said.

The car hit an electricity pole and plunged into an irrigation channel. Both the driver and her friend were taken to hospital in serious condition, the paper said.

There have been several incidents reported in recent years of women being killed in accidents when they were driving in defiance of the ban -- which is just one of a host of restrictions imposed on women in Saudi Arabia.

Women's rights campaigners have petitioned King Abdullah twice in the past year urging him to lift the ban.

Women in the Muslim Gulf kingdom are legally obliged to cover up from head to toe in public, and cannot travel without written permission from a male guardian.

Keli wrote:Saudi woman driver hurt after defying ban
Sep 30 07:09 AM US/Eastern


I don't know why they won't lift the ban--it doubles the number of potential drivers in the car bomb pool.