Vehicle owners in Dubai who want to alter their cars are being encouraged to check with authorities first, as regulators draw a firm line against changes that push machines beyond their factory design.
Ahmed Mahboob, Chief Executive Officer of the Licensing Agency at Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), said the agency keeps specialist teams on hand to review proposed alterations and tell owners whether the work would pass regulatory muster before any money is spent, Al Bayan reported. Some owners, he cautioned, sink considerable sums into changes that never clear approval.
Under the rules, the RTA declines to authorize heavy engine upgrades, anything generating excessive noise, or work that shifts a vehicle away from the specifications it left the factory with. Cars arrive from manufacturers already built and validated against international safety benchmarks, Mahboob noted, and reworking the engine or its parts in ways that break from those original specifications falls outside what the authority permits.
Rather than forcing owners to undo unapproved work after the fact, the agency prefers to suggest tweaks to a planned modification so it lands within the rules from the start. On sound specifically, 95 decibels marks the upper limit, with monitoring handled by the responsible authorities.
Mahboob framed the entire regulatory approach around a single aim: keeping drivers, pedestrians and everyone else who uses the roads protected by holding vehicles to the safety standards already approved for them.
