A female member of a Saudi human rights organisation was reportedly fined by police after she drove herself to hospital. 
 
 Aliyah Al Farid, a businesswoman and member of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), suffers from a chronic condition which means she is occasionally forced to visit hospital. 
 
 In Saudi Arabia, it is not illegal for women to drive on the road, but it is illegal for them to be granted a driver’s license – effectively making the former law meaningless. 
 
 Worried by her condition and unable to find a chaperon, Al Farid, who has reportedly been caught driving twice before, set off in her husband’s car, but was caught by police during her journey, Al-Hayat daily reported, according to the Saudi Gazette. 
 
 When Al Farid explained to police that she was very ill and did not have anyone to help her, officers agreed that she could drive to hospital on the condition that they would wait for her outside. 
 
 Leaving the facility in an undisclosed location, she found four traffic police vehicles and she was taken to the local Traffic Department. 
 
 Al-Farid told reporters: "I told the traffic officers that I had to drive because it was an emergency case. 
 
 "I didn’t do it on purpose and I’m not after fame or media hype. I was very sick and that was it." 
 
 Al-Farid, who learned how to drive in Bahrain does not have a Saudi driver’s license. 
 
 "There are no laws here that ban women from driving cars on the road," she said, adding she had refused to agree to a police request to never drive again. 
 
 Al-Farid owns a centre caring for people with special needs and on occasion must rush her patients to hospital. 
 
 "We can’t leave an epileptic patient convulsing on the ground while waiting for our male driver to come and transport him to hospital. 
 
 "I have to get behind the steering wheel and do it," she told the newspaper. 
 
 And as the area where she lives is remote, taxi drivers often refuse to drive her for fear that their cars might get damaged, she added. ||||| Saudi human rights activist Aliyah Al Farid was detained by police for driving herself to the hospital. While it’s not illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia, cultural custom dictates that women not operate a vehicle, and unofficial religious police enforce the custom. Additionally, women will not be issued driver’s licenses. So while it’s not illegal for them to drive, one requires a license to operate a vehicle, which women can’t get. 
 
 Al Farid claims to have suffered a medical emergency, and instead of waiting around for a man to refuse to ask for directions drive her, decided to take matters (and the steering wheel) into her own hands. 
 
 Enroute to the hospital, Al Farid was pulled over, explained her situation and allowed to continue on to be seen by a doctor. Then, once given the medical okay, she was fined for driving without a license. When asked to sign a document promising to never drive again, Al Farid refused because, again, she wasn’t breaking any official Saudi laws. When asked, Al Farid said she’d do it again. “I didn’t do it on purpose and I’m not after fame or media hype. I was very sick and that was it.” 
 
 h/t: ArabianBusiness.com ||||| A female member of Saudi Arabia’s National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) has reportedly been fined for driving herself to the hospital. 
 
 When police pulled her over, Aliyah Al Farid said she had a medical emergency and there was no one available to drive her to the hospital so she took her husband’s car. 
 
 The officers reportedly allowed her to continue driving. They followed her to the hospital and waited while she saw a doctor, before taking her to the traffic department where she was fined for driving without a licence. 
 
 Women are unable to get a driver’s licence in Saudi Arabia, despite there being no law against women driving. 
 
 Al Farid has been arrested for driving twice previously and has participated in campaigns to allow female drivers, but told Arabic daily Al Hayat on this occasion it was an emergency. 
 
 “I told the traffic officers that I had to drive because it was an emergency case,” she said. 
 
 “I didn’t do it on purpose and I’m not after fame or media hype. I was very sick and that was it.” 
 
 She said she also occasionally drove patients at her centre for persons with special needs when they urgent medical attention. 
 
 “We can’t leave an epileptic patient convulsing on the ground while waiting for our male driver to come and transport him to hospital,” she said. 
 
 “I have to get behind the steering wheel and do it.” 
 
 Al Farid has refused to sign an undertaking not to drive again, citing the fact there is no law prohibiting women from driving; it has become a cultural custom routinely enforced by the unofficial religious police (haia).
– A Saudi woman who suffered a medical emergency when there was no man around is in trouble for driving herself to the hospital. Aliyah Al Farid, a member of the National Society for Human Rights, was pulled over by the country's religious police when she was behind the wheel of her husband's car, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. She was allowed to drive to the hospital after she explained that she suffered from a chronic condition and lives in a remote area, but police took her to be fined by the traffic department after she had been seen by a doctor. Al Farid has campaigned to allow women to drive in the kingdom, but she says the drive to the hospital was an emergency, not a stunt, ArabianBusiness.com reports. "I told the traffic officers that I had to drive because it was an emergency case," she says. "I'm not after fame or media hype. I was very sick and that was it." She owns a center for people with special needs and says she has sometimes driven people to the hospital rather than "leave an epileptic patient convulsing on the ground while waiting for our male driver to come and transport him." Because there is no actual law banning Saudi women from driving, she refused to sign a pledge never to drive again, although it's illegal for women in the kingdom to be issued driver's licenses, the Independent reports. (Last year, a leading Saudi cleric was widely mocked for saying women shouldn't drive because it harms their ovaries.)