Delivery motorbikes face new restrictions

Motorcycles on delivery duties have come under scanner with new restrictions coming into place from June.

The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) announced on Sunday that following a spate of accidents and violations involving motorcycles, the authority in collaboration with the Dubai Police, Department of Economic Development (DED) and Dubai Municipality, has finalised a set of specifications for delivery/courier boxes carried by motorbikes for delivering various items.

Ahmad Hashem Behroozian, CEO of RTA’s Licensing Agency, said that the stipulations that includes a 50x50x50 cm maximum dimension of the storage boxes on the motorcycles, will come into effect from June 6 this year.

However, the operators of these motorbikes will have a grace period till March 6, 2018 to adjust to new stipulations.

“According to the data revealed by Dubai Police, motorbike accidents resulted in 26 fatalities in 2015 and 2016. Motorcyclists were involved in 824 traffic offences in 2016, and 786 bikes were seized. Such statistics warranted the development of new standards to mitigate the hazards associated with motorbike movement on roads,” said Behroozian, highlighting the reasons behind the new regulations.

Apart from the new dimension requirements of the storage box, the stipulations also require the box to be firmly fixed with screws/bolts rather than welding it, the edges of the box must be smooth and not sharp, and the box must not protrude beyond the backend of the bike to avoid the risk of misbalancing the bike.

Behroozian added that the Dubai Police will set the enforcement procedures covering the monitoring and reporting of delivery bikes falling short of the set conditions, while the Municipality will develop the technical specifications of the interiors of delivery boxes of foodstuff and circulate them to contracted service centres as well as issuing annual permits in respect of these boxes.

He said that the DED will circulate these standards and stipulations to the relevant companies.

New regulations

The delivery box must be fitted with lights on all sides

It must be tightly fixed to the body of the bike leaving no space in between

It must be fixed by means of screws/bolts and should not be welded

The outer body of the box must be made of plastic with no sharp edges.

No pillion rider is allowed on the bike

Phosphoric reflector strip must be fixed to the delivery box

Identifiable information must be written on both sides of the box, legible from a distance of 20 metres

source : gulfnews