Driving is ultimate form of freedom – so long as you don’t want a drink
THE age of adulthood does not begin at 18, nor even 21. In fact, it’s not about the date of birth printed on your driver’s license, but the license itself.
On Sunday, as a longstanding ban against female drivers in Saudi Arabia was historically lifted, women across that hardline Muslim country finally became adults. Well, sort of.
Our Saudi sisters are still legally treated as minors from cradle to grave.They need the consent of a male guardian to be able to study, travel, work, marry or obtain many official documents. In fact, a divorced or widowed mother is subject to the guardianship of her own teenage son.
Just the thought of my son being my guardian makes me break out in hives. Within hours he would be selling our household possessions in order to buy Robux and ingredients for slime.
While there is nothing negative about women finally being allowed to toot their own horns in this ultraconservative Middle Eastern nation, critics point out that it’s been orchestrated in such a way to give autocrat King Salman all the credit – even as the country’s women’s rights campaigners have been arrested.
It’s both a bold PR move and a piece of pragmatic sense – low oil prices have strained the nation’s economy, allowing women to drive means they can more readily join the workforce, boosting GDP.
Indeed, Uber is already signing up lady drivers.
But it’s still a momentous occasion for these women.
In retrospect, the day I passed my driving test was the day I grew up. Not literally, alas. The license itself tells the sad tale … 161cm.
(Side note: My 4cm taller mother recently had to renew her license. Still working on the imperial scale, she quickly computed her metric measurement as 188cm. Looking at the suspicious expression of the Transport Department worker she quickly recalibrated - to 88cm. Amazingly, they still gave her a license. And a booster seat.)
A license is your ticket to freedom. I used to tell my parents I was going to the library just to cruise around in their Holden Commodore. I wasn’t doing anything naughty, I just loved that I was free.
My car is still my domain. While I keep my house relatively clean - yes, with the help of a cleaner, but I could choose to spend that money elsewhere; I should be saluted for making cleanliness a budget priority - the car is where, like Elsa, I let it go.
By ‘it’, I mean McDonald’s wrappers, old coffee cups, Coke cans, various clothing items and secret stashes of chocolate. My license might be my adult card, but my car is a time capsule to my inner child.
Meanwhile, the thought of my own babies learning to drive freaks me out entirely. Who am I going to blame my mess on?
Similarly, the day you resign your license is the moment that many begin a long farewell to life. The world shrinks and you begin losing touch.
When we had to take the car away from my mother-inlaw, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, she began giving up the fight.
She felt trapped – and she was. She was stuck within the four walls of her unit – and the growing cage of her mind.
It was terrible, it was heartbreaking, but it was for her own safety – not to mention that of every other driver.
My own mother is still powering on behind the wheel – if at an ever-decreasing speed. She’s a long way off losing her license, but, booking a family trip to Hamilton Island, I left her name off the nominated drivers list for the resort golf buggy. It was a tough blow, especially coming from the daughter who once sank a golf buggy 15 feet under water at Robina Woods golf course.
While she understood that the new roads and distractions from her grandchildren made a dangerous recipe, she was still slightly miffed. Until she realised it means she never has to be the designated driver.
Of course, for women in Saudi Arabia that’s never a problem. Alcohol is illegal – for both sexes. But that’s one equality nobody wants.
Read Ann Wason Moore every Tuesday and Saturday in the