Residents in several districts of Jeddah are worried about the lack of parking space because all the spaces in their neighborhoods are occupied by the vehicles of car rental firms.

A visit to locations close to car rental shops showed how a number of their cars are parked in and around the residential districts. An attempt to visit rent-a-car shops failed because Arab News found most of the shops had their doors closed.

A resident of the Safa district, Abdullah Al-Hawi, said the car renting companies mostly park their cars in a chaotic manner on the main and side roads, and even on the pavements in residential districts. They cause traffic jams during peak hours of the day while people residing in nearby houses do not find any place to park their cars. Such things are happening only because there is no one to check the activities of the car rental establishments, he added.

“Heated arguments and fist fights often occur between the residents of nearby apartments and the workers of the car rentals,” Al-Hawi said, adding that a solution should be found for this problem that upsets the residents in his area.

He said there should be some clear regulations regarding the parking areas permitted for car renting agencies, which are mostly operated by expatriate workers who should be supervised by the municipality, traffic police or the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and those who violate the regulations should be punished.

Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, resident of Al-Salamah district, said he was a victim of the parking excesses of a car renting agency, especially during vacation seasons, and he hardly finds a single parking place for his car near his house.

He wanted the authorities to impose fines on such car renting agencies.

Muhammad Khaled said the car rental agencies should be permitted to operate only outside the city if the concerned authorities who are supposed to monitor the activities of car renting shops do not perform their duties properly.

A worker at a car renting agency, Muhammad Said, stated that he was aware of the violations committed by the renting shops. But they had no other option because their parking spaces could not accommodate all the vehicles they had under their disposal and so they parked them on the pavements and inside residential districts.

Muhammad Al-Zahrani, owner of a building where car rental agencies operate, said: “We used to insist on the renting agencies not to park their cars on the pavement or commit any parking violations. We report to police if we find any one violating the regulations. Such agencies are fined for causing traffic jams.”

Col. Zayd Al-Hamzi, spokesman for Jeddah Traffic, said his department did not permit any rental agencies to park their cars on the pavements in residential neighborhoods, and violators are fined. They are also not allowed to use public parking areas. Such agencies are allowed to park only two vehicles in front of their establishments, he added.