Dubai Implements New Measures Against Abandoned Vehicles

Dubai Municipality has announced a new text message warning system as part of its campaign to help remove abandoned vehicles from Dubai roads and make the city look cleaner. The organization has announced that motorists in the city who leave their vehicles parked in the same spot for a long duration will soon get a warning from the municipality before their vehicle is removed.

An SMS alert system will be used to notify the owners that they should either remove their cars or get them cleaned before the vehicles are impounded. The new system is part of the municipality’s efforts to “maintain city cleanliness.”

The Dubai Municipality said in a post on twitter, “Dubai Municipality will change procedures of unwanted vehicles, to facilitate notifying the owners of removing their abandoned vehicles, to preserve the beauty of the city, reserve and respect the residents’ rights to park”. The organization also shared a video that explained how the system would be implemented. Car owners will receive an SMS giving them a deadline by which they should move their car. If they fail to move the vehicle before the deadline mentioned in the SMS, the municipality will impound the vehicle.

In 2019, the Dubai Municipality had implemented a “My Vehicle” campaign as part of which owners wre warned that their vehicle could be towed away to a scrapyard to prevent the “distortion of the general appearance of the city”. As part of the scheme, stickers were placed on offending vehicles for 15 days before they were towed away.

If the owner of the impounded vehicle failed to come forward after six months, the vehicle would then be sold off at an auction.

Commenting on the new campaign, Abdulmajeed Saifaie, director of the waste management department at Dubai Municipality said that the aim of the campaign was to raise the level of community awareness on the damages done by neglected vehicles. He said that it was also being implemented with the goal of promoting the values of social responsibility in maintaining the sustainability of the public appearance and beauty of public utilities.