21,000 abandoned cars marked for removal from Jeddah streets

JEDDAH — Municipal inspectors in Jeddah marked 21,000 broken-down and abandoned vehicles for removal during the past year, Al-Watan newspaper reported. Sami Al-Ghamdi, director of media at the municipality, said the civic body cooperated with Police Department, the Traffic Police and the contractors to clear the streets of abandoned cars. “The municipality organized a campaign on all streets of the governorate to identify and mark all abandoned vehicles. The marked vehicles were removed from the street,” said Al-Ghamdi. He said the campaign covered north, south and central Jeddah. “When the municipality marks abandoned vehicles in public places, it gives a deadline of 15 days to removing them. The marking is a notice to vehicle owners to remove them from the streets before the municipality does,” said Al-Ghamdi. He said most of the abandoned vehicles were in central Jeddah. “The municipality marked more than 15,000 vehicles in Al-Aziziyah, Al-Sharafiyah, Briman and Al-Matar districts. The municipality removed 3,775 of the marked vehicles in those districts,” said Al-Ghamdi. He said traffic police seized 4,503 vehicles while the municipality towed 6,949 vehicles. “The campaign also covered the south Jeddah districts of Umm Al-Salm, Al-Jamiah, Al-Balad and Al-Janoob. The municipality marked 4,800 vehicles there and removed 2,432 of them. The traffic police seized 1,411 of the vehicles and the municipality towed 1,432 others,” said Al-Ghamdi. In north Jeddah, the municipality marked 889 abandoned vehicles. The municipality towed 362 of them while the traffic police impounded 344, said Al-Ghamdi.