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. 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. Enroute to the hospital, Al Farid was pulled over, explained her situation and allowed to continue on to be seen by a doctor. 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. 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. 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.” 
 
 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.)