MADINA: Sources at the Madina Traffic Administration have said it is on the trail of the origin of fake Gulf registration plates which some motorists have been using to avoid detection by Saher speed cameras. A number of vehicles have been caught using the phony plates, and investigators believe they could have their origin at scrap yards where cars are dismantled to be used for spare parts. The ruse is one of several which motorists in Madina, who have proved some of the most resistant to the speed cameras, have been using to avoid detection. Among their tricks, the sources said, are painting in an extra number on their registration plates and removing the plates from the front of their vehicles. The regional Traffic Administration has issued repeated warnings to the public against such practices in an area where Saher cameras have been subject to vandalism and where members of the public have been reported standing guard at the roadside to warn motorists of approaching cameras. Muhammad Al-Shanbari, head of Traffic in Madnia, meanwhile, has intervened on behalf of a man in his eighties who has been accumulating speeding fines committed by his two incorrigible sons. The elderly man maintains that it is his sons who keep committing the offenses of which he is then informed by mobile telephone text message. “I've tried to get them to drive carefully,” the man said, “but they're incorrigible.” Al-Shanbari, however, has stepped in to have any future offenses registered under the Civil Affairs records of the man's sons. “He is an elderly man and has no connection with the offenses for which he is being charged,” he said. “All the same, he has paid them. I've made sure that any new fines against the vehicle in question are directed to his sons.” Al-Shanbari added.
