Instructor hits road with Saudi women

Norma Adrianzen has her foot on the gas pedal of history.

With the decades-long ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia now lifted, the Newport Beach driving instructor is one of just three women worldwide training the instructors who will teach Saudi women how to take the wheel.

Adrianzen arrived in Saudi Arabia about two months before the ban expired in late June and expects to be there at least a year. She is joined by colleagues from Wales and Canada.

Women with experience driving in other countries have been jubilantly and proudly driving in Saudi Arabia in the days since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ended the decades-long, unwritten policy. The ban was an economic burden on the many Saudi families that couldn’t afford chauffeurs, even as it made conditions more difficult for women to join the workforce.

This is a monumental shift, Adrianzen said by phone from Dammam, a Saudi port city along the Persian Gulf.

Adrianzen and her husband, Carlos, run Newport Driving School, a program licensed by the California Department of Motor Vehicles that teaches new drivers of all ages and cultures.

Several months ago, a company working on behalf of the Saudi government reached out to Newport Driving School by phone and email, Adrianzen said. At first, she wasn’t sure whether the pitch was real.

But she agreed to a 3 a.m. interview over Skype.

Adrianzen, who has more than 20 years of teaching experience, was among 1,500 potential instructors, Carlos Adrianzen said.

“They chose the best people … in the world,” he said.

Now, Norma Adrianzen, her colleagues and their student instructors — about 30 in the first group — are headlong into a program that combines 20 hours of lectures and 40 hours of behind-the-wheel training.

Adrianzen and her colleagues must establish a school from scratch using Saudi road rules.

The instructors practiced on a private surface before being free to take the road. The student instructors, also women, got their first exposure to driving in the United States or Canada as well as Western culture and rules of the road through Adrianzen’s experience.

“Our standard in America is really high,” Adrianzen said.

She noted that adults take longer to learn.

Adrianzen said many Saudi men learned to drive informally and that the male-hired drivers there aren’t especially safe or skilled.

Culturally, she said, the country is trying to make the roads safer for women. The government has set up a hotline for women to report men harassing them or driving aggressively to try to intimidate them.

“It’s a good change for the country,” Adrianzen said.