Saudi Arabia’s Ban on Woman Drivers Comes to an End

On a steamy evening in Riyadh, just after evening prayer,scores of Saudi women gathered outside one of the city’s most popular malls. There, under pulsing searchlights and speakers blasting upbeat Arabic music, the women lined up to enter a parking lot that had been converted into an expo featuring an array of driving-related workshops.The festival, with the Arabic tagline , or “Have Confidence, and Get Out There!” began on June 21, with similar expos opening in several other Saudi cities, ahead of the end of the ban on women drivers in the Kingdom scheduled for June 24.   At the expo, the guests, most clad in plain black and ,and a few in colorful robes, their hair uncovered, followed female guides from station to station, pausing for presentations on car maintenance, traffic etiquette, and basic technique. Some women recorded a tutorial on braking using their phones, while others snapped selfies next to a seatbelt exhibit. Most