The head of the Traffic Administration in Jeddah has denied rumors that a number of women have taken to driving cars in the streets of the city, saying that patrols have not recorded a single instance of such a traffic violation. Al-Watan newspaper reported on Monday that numerous eyewitnesses had claimed seeing Saudi and foreign women behind the wheel, and that the number of instances appeared to be on the rise over the week following the beginning of the school mid-term holidays, most notably during the evening on Jeddah's Corniche roads. “On an average we register some 11,000 traffic violations per day in Jeddah,” said Mohammed Al-Qahtani of the Traffic Administration, “but we have not recorded a single one concerning women driving for the whole of the month.” A member of the public told Al-Watan that he saw a woman wearing a hijab driving a small car near the junction of King Abdul Aziz Road and Palestine Street, saying that she appeared to be heading to a nearby hospital. Another said he saw a woman driving a whole family in Obhur in the north of Jeddah. Yet another eyewitness told the newspaper that he saw a woman driving an old man south along the Haramain Road. “She didn't appear to drive very well, as she was causing a bit of a commotion among the traffic,” the eyewitness told Al-Watan. “She left the road at the King Abdullah Street exit, and parked at a building nearby.” Al-Qahtani went on to say that around 80 unmarked patrols had been deployed around the city alongside the usual marked patrols to combat traffic violations.
