The decision of the Public Transportation Authority in Saudi Arabia, which prohibits the passage of any truck with an operational age of more than 20 years, threatens to stop approximately 5,000 Jordanian trucks from continuing to operate in the transit sector. The Saudi authority has published a new book of instructions for transporting goods, transporting passengers in buses and taxis on the roads, which will be implemented on February 1, 2023.
Truck owners in Jordan claim that the decision severely harms Jordanian drivers. According to them, they will now have to take out loans from the banks to purchase new vehicles, manufactured since 2012. The price of such a truck is expected to reach about 85 thousand dollars, an amount that cannot be repaid during ten years of operation, it is claimed. The drivers’ representatives also stated that the owner of the truck will find himself forced to repeat the operation and purchase another truck in accordance with the new guidelines.
They emphasized that the decision will harm thousands of Jordanian families and industrial sectors in the long run.