The Yangon Region government has announced that a crackdown on motorbikes in the Yangon municipal area will begin on July 1. Any motorbikes seen on the street will be confiscated.
Yangon authorities began planning the crackdown last year, when the regional minister for border affairs told the regional parliament that he would enact “precise regional decrees concerning motorcycles.”
According to the Irrawaddy, there is no law prohibiting motorcycles in Yangon, but they are banned under municipal decrees in 33 of the city’s townships.
“The reason for banning motorcycles is that they can breed motorcycle gangs, robberies, and violations of traffic laws,” the regional minister said in October 2016.
When the ban was first enacted in 2003, it was thought to have been motivated by the fears of the ruling generals, one of whom was allegedly threatened by a youth riding motorbike.
Thaketa Township administrator U Aung San Win told The Voice that the crackdown has already begun in that area. It will now be expanded to the rest of the city.
According to a 2015 report by the Global New Light of Myanmar, an unlicensed motorbike confiscated by police is held for five months, and if the owner does not return with a license within that time, the bike is “melted down.”
Licensed motorbikes are returned by police when the owner pays a fine of about K50,000.
The ban takes a heavy toll on residents of Yangon’s outskirts. One resident of one of the Dagon Myothit townships told The Voice: “Local buses don’t reach the remote townships, so the people here have to use motorbikes to get home. The government should consider the will of the people in these situations.”
A regional MP tried last year to allow motorbikes in these remote areas, but the raising of the subject appears to only have prompted authorities to crack down harder.
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