Jeddah’s streets and districts have turned into illegal parking lots for abandoned and derelict cars even though they have stickers warning the owners of penalties if their vehicles are not removed.

The owners, however, are least concerned and often leave their cars to rust for long periods of time clogging much needed space. The authorities also seemed to have turned a blind eye to the hundreds of cars which remain standing in various stages of dilapidation and neglect across the city including residential plots in the Safa, Marwah, Haramain and in south Jeddah.

Jeddah residents believe that the ramshackle vehicles disfigure the beauty of the tourist city besides harboring rodents and insects and are used as storage containers for rag pickers. In addition, beggars have also turned the cars into make-shift homes.

“One of the reasons for the large number of abandoned cars in the city’s districts is the lack of a consistent strategy on the part of related government departments to stop the practice,” Salman Al-Zaheeri, a city resident, told Arab News. He added that the authorities were also reluctant to tow the metal scrap to junk yards and slack in meting out deterrent punishments to those responsible.

Another citizen Muhammad Al-Hamadani said: “It is very difficult to find an empty parking space in any neighborhood or around public facilities such as gardens because of the abandoned vehicles taking up precious space. The owners remain unknown causing much grief to other users as they are clueless about where to make the complaint.” He added that the cars should be moved outside the residential districts.

Aqil Al-Johani also blamed the owners of the abandoned cars for neglecting to respond to the scrap companies who leave their phone numbers on the vehicles in order to negotiate the sales and towing of the cars.

However, spokesman of the Jeddah Municipality Muhammad Al-Boqami while admitting the failure of the civic body to arrest the problem blamed the car owners for refusing to cooperate with the municipality in terms of notifying them of the location of the unwanted vehicles or cancelation of their number plates.