WHILE abandoned vehicles on the city streets continue to pile up, their concentration has reached an alarming proportion around the Qatar Technical Inspection Company (QTIC), the authority that approves their roadworthiness.
The phenomenon is evident everywhere in Qatar’s oldest and largest Industrial Area, from the first road to the dead-ends on Street 54.
As for vehicles around the QTIC, owners apparently just left them behind after they were not found roadworthy by the inspection company.
And while in the city area, it’s usually the sedans that are abandoned by owners, around the QTIC, it’s everything: from four-wheelers to flatbeds, sports cars to pickups and school buses.
On one side of the QTIC alone, there are close to 60 abandoned vehicles of all makes. The line continues even when the actual boundary of QTIC ends, going all the way to the next
intersection.
Gathering nothing but dust, the vehicles have totally warped into the “Wild West feel” of the area.
The vehicles, on the other hand, have not totally been useless: they were ostensibly worth something as tyres and windows have been nicked, engines are missing in some, parts are regularly pilfered. They also provide shelter to stray animals.
Undated stickers by the Doha Municipality have been pasted on some, deeply buried under layers of dust, warning the owners to pick them up within “three days of the notice” or the public cleaning section will be forced to pursuit the relevant law – Law 8 of 1974, it notes.
A QTIC operations official, on condition of anonymity, told Gulf Times that they have notified the municipality time and again.
“Apparently they are giving the owners some time. Also please keep in mind that the area also houses a row of garages, where abandoned cars is a regular sight. We, as a matter of policy, don’t keep a vehicle for more than a day,” he said.
As a matter of procedure, the public cleaning section at the Doha Municipality can only stick warning notices on abandoned vehicles. It is for the Traffic Department to tow them to the junkyard in Abu Hamour.
http://gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=271428&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16
Solution? To get people to actually do their jobs at the relevant authority AND fine the people who leave it there even if they DONT want their car.
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