Abu Dhabi clamps down on illegally modified vehicles

The Directorate of Traffic and Patrols of the Abu Dhabi Police has begun clamping down on motorists whose motor vehicles are fitted with illegally modified power boosters which increase the speed and amplify the engine sound.

The traffic directorate shall step up its patrol cars on roads as part of an open-ended campaign to catch offenders who try to modify their vehicles with devices that increase the car speed and maximise the engine sound, an offense which could pose a problem to errant motorists as well as other road users in general.

Black points rehab programme The Community Service Department of the Abu Dhabi Police announced on Monday that it has launched two new services through which a motorist can sign up for the traffic black points rehabilitation programme. To register in the programme, which is designed by the traffic directorate to educate and enlighten delinquent motorists, a motorist can contact the customer care centre on 600566006 or through the official website of the Abu Dhabi Police, www.adpolice.gov.ae/csd, by clicking on the e-service tab. Earlier in April 2011, the Abu Dhabi Police launched the programme to allow errant motorists, who accumulate 24 black points or less, to rectify their driving style and encourage them to stick to traffic rules by joining a rehabilitation course. “Since it became operational in April, 2011, 821 drivers joined 89 programmes given in Arabic, Urdu, and English. Male drivers accounted for 95.5 per cent,” Captain Mubarak Saeed Al Rashidi, Director of the Statistics Branch at the Department of Community Service, explained. news@khaleejtimes.com

Brigadier Hussain Ahmed Al Harthi, Director of the Directorate, stated that the traffic law forbids motor vehicles supported with engine boosters to ply on internal and peripheral roads and residential areas.

Those vehicles are only given the go-ahead at designated and authorised courses, said Al Harthi, adding that to reach authorised fields, such modified vehicles have to be carried on a towing truck and not by driving on roads.

Motorists are not allowed to do so under any pretext whatsoever. The police shall adopt a zero-tolerance policy against offenders, Al Harthi warned. “What some irresponsible youth are doing by changing the existing characteristics of the engines of their vehicles and motorbikes to amplify their sound and boost their speed to show themselves off before onlookers is nothing but a wrong manner that is practiced at an incorrect place,” said Al Harthi.

“It is also a shortcut to death and getting injured means sustaining a disability and a deformity, at a time when the country is exerting utmost effort to maintain its human resources, of which young people accounts for the major part.”

Brig Al Harthi pointed out that the improper electrical extensions made to engines by unprofessional persons, who are in fact unaware of the simple safety rules, to jack up speed of motor vehicles which are not designed for the same, could double the risk of a car catching fire especially when a vehicle collides with a solid object.

“A car, thus, may explode or a short circuit may happen, and in the event of a fuel leakage following a car crash, the situation could aggravate and put the life of both the driver and those surrounding the vehicle in imminent danger,” he explained.

news@khaleejtimes.com