Cars Being Abandoned Left and Right in Qatar

 

 

Posted By Zach Doell 

 

 

It’s hard to imagine abandoning your car. Sure, it might just be a rust bucket — but it’s your rust bucket. Regardless, apparently some people in Qatar are simply leaving their cars to rot in the desert. And they’re not all just rust buckets.

In recent years, Qatar has been hit hard by a growing trend of abandoned vehicles littering city streets. From your average clunker to ultra-rare Jaguar XJ220s (seen here), residents of the tiny nation — which is smaller in size than Connecticut (only 4,467 square miles) — have bore witness to the rapid growth of renounced autos.

 

 

According to Qatar’s The Peninsula, there are a few reasons behind the phenomenon. Many residents attribute the trend to the country’s steady population increase, while others chalk it up to owners facing huge traffic violations, a default on their credit payments, or fees attributed with proper disposal of used cars.

Simply put, there are a lot more cars in Qatar nowadays. Mohammad Saad Al Kharji, director of the country’s traffic department, noted that five years ago, only 18,000 vehicles were registered per year. Today, the department registers around 100,000 vehicles, meaning there’s a lot of cleanup to be done.

In an effort to combat the growing number of deserted autos, the country’s Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning created a website for residents to file complaints about the eyesores dotting their streets.

So far, the government has removed more than 10,000 vehicles from the city of Al Khor in northern Qatar, with more than 12,000 vehicles hauled away nationwide, according to an April article from Qatar Living.