by Andy Palmer
TALES FROM THE VALE
Tales From The Vale
There are news headlines pointing out absurdities in our world that frequently make me laugh. A while ago I turned on the radio and heard that Saudi Arabia has announced a new ‘liberal’ law which would ’allow women to drive’. I genuinely thought I’d caught some satirical show and laughed dutifully (I hadn’t realized women were banned). The announcer went on to explain the conditions to this amazing act of liberalism and inclusivity by saying women drivers had to cover their heads, there must be a male adult in the car (well, of course!) and women weren’t allowed behind the wheel after 6pm. By the time we got to the curfew bit it struck me that I was listening to Radio 4 news and that this was genuine. Still laughed at the sheer audacity of Saudi males banning women from driving. I know a little about Saudi males’ driving – it’s dangerous. There is little road discipline. For example, if a driver has passed his turning on a six lane motorway, he’ll simply do a U-turn and drive back through the oncoming traffic in a blaze of blaring horns and curses. Terrible death toll According to the Global Status Report on Road Safety, Saudi Arabia (population 34.8 million) had the highest death rate associated with road injury of any high-income country in 2016, with a total count of fatalities at 9,031. The population is 34.8 million, so that’s 0.028% of the population. Let’s put this into context. In the UK there was an estimated 1,390 reported road deaths in 22
“...my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States. And I’m not gonna eat any more broccoli!”
the year ending June 2021, a decrease of 11% compared to the year ending June 2020. With a population of 65m, that’s 0.002% of the population.
City of Roses and Nightingales My family also lived in Iran in the late 70s and that was an eye-opener. For example, road menders in and around Shiraz (known as the ‘City of Roses and Nightingales’ - the reality was somewhat different) would dig a big hole in a road to find a pipe. They’d knock off at dusk and just leave the hole – no signs or flashing lights. In our morning walks to Pahlavi university, we got used to walking past a twisted car in a hole in the road with a smashed windscreen adorned with ominous dark splashes – ‘only cissies wore seat belts’.
the news made me laugh (in a rather perplexed way) as I write this in mid-January: apparently, homosexuality was illegal in Britain’s armed forces as late as the year 2000. Got that? Illegal! How can it be illegal to be homosexual? What’s the rationale? We’ll leave aside the fact that any woman or man joining the armed forces is prepared to put their lives on the line to serve their country. The plain illogicality of ‘banning homosexuality’ is stupefying. We’ll also leave aside ‘how can you police it’. But above all why? Put very simply, and I apologise to readers who don’t fall into this over simplified categorisation, you are either heterosexual, or you are homosexual, you drift somewhere in between, or you just are asexual. That’s who you are! It’s how you are born, or how you develop as a person. It’s your natural disposition. You may as well ban people having blonde hair, or liking blues guitar. Or make it illegal to dislike eating broccoli and sprouts (all of which I have and do).
And on sexuality Another bit of information from
The broccoli war! Well, that’s all a bit serious so
My simple solution Now my contention is that if Saudi simply banned all males from driving - and only allowed women behind a steering wheel - than the fatality rate would plummet immediately. I would like readers to mail in their views on this to the editor.