Originally Posted by
Roody
I also wondered if local people ride bikes around the city much. You said it seemed too dangerous, but people say that about every city in the world. Do you have any experience at riding in heavy car traffic anywhere else? If so, how does Jeddah compare to other cities that you've ridden in?
Damascus, Syria. I spent half a summer there in 1996. Lots of traffic, but motorists seemed to be much more astute about sharing the streets with cyclists, since a much greater percentage of the population used bikes to get around compared to Jordan.
Speaking of which, traffic in today's Jordan is a far cry from what it used to be in 1990s Jordan. The population was significantly smaller and there were far fewer cars, so while I practically had the road all to myself most of the time back then, I'd think twice about venturing our on a bicycle in today's Irbid or Amman.
The same is true for Jeddah in 2003 vs. 2016. As much as I'm enjoying my return to cycling today, I wouldn't venture out onto any of the city's major arteries, but I probably would've felt safe doing just that if I had been cycling in 2003 or 2004 after I had just moved there.
Originally Posted by
Roody
Are there some males you haven't met who don't drive? They would probably give you better info on the topic than the ones who do drive. And how do women get around? I noticed both males and femsles in the pictures you posted earlier.
All sarcasm and politics aside, I wanted to do this when I had some free time on my hands and while sitting down.
As a matter of fact, apart from the very poor workers who can't afford cars and legally can't get driver's licenses, I haven't met any males in this country, Saudi or otherwise who don't drive. The first thing every professional expat starts making plans to do when they are hired into the country - after renting a place to live if housing wasn't in the contract - is to buy a car. Historically, with fuel having been so cheap and automobiles being so easy to obtain, boys are steeped in car culture from a young age, so as soon as they turn 18, all they want is their own car. The a few kids of my Saudi in-laws have just entered the 14-17 age range, and all they talk about is cars, cars, cars (besides the never-ending debate of Dwayne Johnson vs. John Sena.)
As for women getting around, most well-off families (ours included) have hired, full-time drivers, albeit now Uber is getting more and more popular. Calls to allow women to drive have been getting stronger since the 1990s, and the ongoing national debate between the supporters (the "doomed-to-hell liberals" as some religious fanatics would call them) and the detractors (the "backward, closed-minded religious cavemen" as some of the more intense activists would call them) gets bitingly intense at times, and there's a growing overall general feeling that this could happen sometime soon.