Riders ferrying food and packages across Kuwait will be off the roads during the harshest stretch of the day this summer. The General Traffic Department, under the Interior Ministry, has ordered that delivery motorcycles stay parked between 11am and 4pm every day from June 1 through August 31, with the rule applying across the entire country.
Penalties await those who ignore it. Officials cautioned that both riders and the firms employing them are expected to follow the directive, and any breach will draw traffic citations along with sanctions tied to permit violations.
The timing is not arbitrary. It lines up with the nation’s long-standing midday labour prohibition, a seasonal rule that keeps people from working outdoors during the fiercest heat and is meant to bring down rates of heat-related illness and on-the-job injury.
Those concerns are grounded in Kuwait’s climate, where summer readings routinely climb past 50°C, placing it among the hottest places anywhere. Over the past several years, the authorities have tightened their approach to protecting people who labour in the open, layering firmer enforcement of heat-safety rules onto public campaigns aimed at both workers and the businesses that hire them.
A separate measure targets energy strain rather than physical exposure. Government offices are now operating on a six-hour daily schedule through the summer, a change introduced to ease electricity demand and keep the national power grid steady. That shift followed the Civil Service Council’s approval of a plan trimming the official workday at state agencies from seven hours down to six for the duration of the season.
