Dubai: Twenty Dubai drivers offering illegal car lift services were deported and 60 vehicles were impounded following a month-long inspection campaign by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).
RTA officials carried out the inspections in cooperation with strategic partners, namely Dubai Police (Airport Police Centre and Tourist Security Department), the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) Dubai, and several other government departments for 30 days. The campaign targeted unlicensed passenger transport, taxis and limousines for about 30 days.
“The campaign, which lasted more than a month, targeted labourers and tourist areas in the emirate and resulted in reporting 306 offences for practising unlicensed passenger transport activities,” said Mohammad Walid Nabhan, director of Passengers Transport Activities Monitoring at RTA’s Public Transport Agency.
“About 257 of these offences were related to the practising of unauthorised commercial passenger transport, and 49 offences were related to the promotion of unauthorised passenger transport.”
Repeat offenders or drivers caught offering illegal passenger transport for more than three offences by law are deported while vehicles are automatically impounded.
“Other penalties enforced against violators included seizure of the vehicle used in the unauthorised transportation and deporting the driver in case of more than three offences. Accordingly, 60 vehicles have been impounded and 20 violators have been deported in coordination with GDRFA-Dubai,” Nabhan said.
As for taxis, some 326 offences for parking in prohibited areas were recorded while 315 offences for picking passengers from unauthorised areas were noted. Another 242 offences involved obstructing traffic movement among others.
For limousines, 173 offences were registered, including 53 offences for failing to fix the driver’s permit badge, 32 offences for eating, smoking or sleeping in the vehicle during work hours, and 29 offences for parking in prohibited places, to name a few.
