Law-enforcement officials say their clampdown on illegal private taxis has borne encouraging results as more than 300 operators of the shady service and their cars have fallen in their dragnet in recent months.
According to Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya), known for their signature red patrol vans, the agency has caught some 355 illegal private taxis in the first six months of this year and referred them for legal action.
Brigadier Ali Salem Al Mohannadi, a senior Lekhwiya official, said this was a significant number.
Stricter vigil mounted by the agency on the shady taxi operations has now resulted in substantial reduction in such operators.
“We, therefore, hope that the number of these illegal taxis that we might catch in future would considerably come down.”
Lekhwiya, he said, also keeps vigil near secondary schools where the roads are sometimes used by young students for illegal and dangerous car racing and stunts. Last year, six secondary schools were visited by Lekhwiya patrols. “We crackdown on dangerous racing and daredevilry by young students,” he said. These students possess no driving license in the first place. Al Mohannadi said radars had been installed on major thoroughfares outside of Doha to check violations of speed limits to prevent accidents.
For installing radar cameras, those road stretches were identified that were more prone to speed limit breaches by motorists.
As a result, speed limit violations and the number of mishaps occurring on these arterial roads have come down dramatically.
Citing figures in an interview to Al Sharq that was published yesterday, the official said in the last six months of 2012 an unbelievably large number of speed limit violations (177,946) had been reported.
That number had come down by more than 39,000 to 138,602 in the next six months (January to June, 2013) following the installation of radars at crucial spots along these roads. The Peninsula
In the same period (2013), some five stolen cars were recovered by Lekhwiya, said Al Mohannadi. He explained that the job of his agency was to play a supportive role with the Traffic Police and other law-enforcement agencies.
“For example, we catch runaway workers as well. Until June this year, several outlawed workers were caught by our men.”
Similarly, over 2,600 cars of various descriptions that were wanted by the authorities concerned for legal reasons were fished out by the agency in the first six months of this year.
The cars left abandoned on roadsides or in open grounds are also spotted by Lekhwiya and towed away in collaboration with the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning. People driving old and rundown cars would better be aware as the agency is keeping a vigil on them too.
Source:Agencies
