Deadline for changing vehicle number plates ends tomorrow

A sample number plate (File picture used for illustrative purposes only)

By Bonnie James/Deputy News Editor

Tomorrow is the last day for replacing the old number plates of vehicles, it is learnt. Internal Security Force (ISF) personnel yesterday flagged down vehicles with old number plates at various parts of Doha and alerted motorists about the deadline.

Vehicles found plying with old number plates after tomorrow will be impounded for a month and the owners fined, an ISF patrol squad informed a motorist who was getting a flat tyre fixed at a repair shop behind University Petrol Station.

The car in question was a rented one and the motorist, a visitor, was unaware of the deadline. The ISF personnel briefed him about the change of number plates and explained the legal consequences of using the old number plates.

It was in November 2011 that the Traffic Department launched the new number plates which feature only the internationally used numerals, with the word Qatar written in both English and Arabic.

All the new vehicles registered were given the new number plates whereas the old ones got them when brought for renewal of registration. A dedicated facility was opened in Duhail for fixing the new number plates.

In the earlier stage, there was a delay of several weeks for the new number plates to be ready once the registration was renewed, but as the process got into full swing, the waiting period came down to a week or two.

The Duhail facility, which caters to hundreds of vehicles daily, has been working in full capacity for the past few months given the task of changing the number plates of all the vehicles in the country, which stood at 879,039 at the end of 2012, compared to 814,373 in 2011.

As per the original schedule, the changing of old number plates was supposed to be completed by the end of November 2012, but continued to be extended to cater to all the vehicles.

It is pointed out that the vehicles still plying with old number plates are those with expired registration or belonging to some rental companies, as it happened with a motorist whose experience is quoted earlier in this report.