Dubai RTA to cancel cars with expired registration

From the 1st of January 2011, the Dubai RTA will start writing off the vehicles if their registration has not been renewed for two years. The rules kicks in after a 3-month grace period that expires at the end of 2010.

“Writing off” vehicles means the car’s record will be deleted from the RTA traffic files. According to Gulf News, once the record is deleted from the system, the owner will have to re-register it as a new vehicle with higher fees and fines.

Motorists will also have their vehicles confiscated by the police with heavy fines if they are found driving their cars with registration that has been expired for more than two years. Apparently there are as many as 50,000 of these roaming the streets, although many are just cars abandoned by people who fled the country. The others are largely people with traffic fines so big that they choose to not go in for the annual renewal.

Amazingly, the RTA claims that 162,000 new vehicles were registered in 2010, and that there are now 1,033,880 vehicles plying the streets of Dubai. That’s like one vehicle for every two residents.