DUBAI: A senior police official has denied reports of travellers being detained at Dubai International Airport or at the land borders due to unpaid traffic fines.
Major General Mohammad Saif Al Zafein, Director General of the Traffic Department of Dubai Police, told XPRESS: “There is no such law… a driver can travel from one country to another regardless of the amount [of traffic fines] he owes us.”
The official dismissed reports of a travel ban on people with unpaid traffic fines “as mere rumours reported as fact”.
“It is not true that there’s a quota of fines by which a driver will be prevented from travelling abroad until he’s paid his dues in full,” he said.
The official stated the case of a Saudi man who racked up Dh300,000 in fines in the UAE in 2011 and was allowed to leave the country. His case is neither the first nor the last.
TOP OFFENDERS
Until April (the latest official police data available), nearly 4,000 people in the UAE had accumulated over Dh10,000 in traffic fines. Of that, about 300 offenders accumulated more than Dh40,000 in fines.
Dubai Police also listed top ten offenders who had over Dh1 million in traffic fines between them. Eight of them are Emiratis. Four of the top 10 are women. The leading offender, an Emirati woman in her twenties, racked up Dh134,040 in traffic fines as of April.
Her car has been confiscated. Most of her 218 offences were for speeding.
BLACK POINTS SYSTEM
Another official of the Dubai Traffic Department said they had devised a system to deal with repeat offenders. “If a driver registers 24 black points for the first time, we withdraw his licence for three months. If he/she registers 24 points the second time, the licence is taken away for six months. If he/she repeats the offence a third time, his/her licence is revoked and he will be banned from driving for a year. After that, he has to apply for a new driver’s licence.”
