UAE blocks low-paid workers from driving - report

Certain foreigners living and working in the UAE will no longer be able to obtain driving licences if they are doing jobs considered to be menial, UAE daily the Gulf News reported on Sunday.

Nurses, cooks, housemaids, gardeners and tailors top a list of 100 occupations in which workers without a university education will no longer be granted licences, the English-language daily said.

It quoted a Sharjah police official as saying the authorities were invoking an existing law, rarely applied in the past, to curb the number of cars on the roads.

Licensing officials and driving schools were ordered last week to check applicants' residency permits to determine if they were eligible to drive, he added.

"The move is meant to reduce the huge number of vehicles by limiting the number of professionals allowed to obtain driving licences," the official was quoted as saying.

It was not clear from the report whether the rule was being imposed across the country or only in Sharjah.

The UAE has also decided to ban renewing the road licences of vehicles more than 15 years old as of 2010, in a bid to curb congestion and pollution.

The first phase of a modern metro system in the emirate will not be completed until September 2009.

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