Life on the Spot! Life and Leisure in Doha, Qatar

Our car passed its yearly Car Test last March 18. I was really glad that I didn't have any problems at all. I went to the Testing center in Industrial Area after work and spent less than 20 minutes for the whole registration and test to finish. I was actually worried since the car has a scrape on the front bumper due to my laziness when parking in City Center months ago. Luckily, the guy who was doing the checking decided not to make a big deal of it. Great! Oh, registration for the test costs QR75.

The next day, I got the insurance prepared by Doha Insurance in their office in C-Ring Road and paid the minimum charge of QR1250 for a comprehensive insurance. I got the minimum amount paid since I didn't get into an acciddent last year. I think they ad danother 500QR if your car has gotten into an accident for that year of coverage. I found out that cars usually get a 20% depreciation each year in terms of their value so our car is now less than QR30,000. Anyway, it was easy to get the insurance sorted out and went to the Traffic Police Department in the Airport Area. This is where the problems started.

I got a number  and was sent to one of the lady receptionist. I was thinking that this would just take 5 minutes but then I was told that I was missing a "Computer Number". I asked where I would get that compuer number and was told I should get it in my Insurance company. So I went back to the Doha Insurance and asked them for the number. I was told that that number was already in the form so I went back to the traffic department and showed the lady the number. She told me that it wasn't it and was asked to talk to another officer who can speak English better. The "Computer number" is supposed to be given by my company as the car is still under ther name. Feeling defeated, I gave up just went back to work.

I applied for the document for the transfer of registration of the car to my name once I got back in the office and got the document a week after. I was excited to go back to the Traffic Department but was again rejected. Why? Apparently, my company placed the stamp and signature on the wrong location. Argghhhh!!! So I had to leave and apply for the document again.

By this time, I was told by my colleague that I might encounter some problems with my insurance as it would already be 2 weeks since I got the car insured and my expiration date for next year would be past 2 weeks before my 2009 registration expires.

I got the revised and corrected document the next day and decided to make sure that I won't encounter anymore problems by going to Doha Insurance and extending my insurance to reflect the date that I'm registering my car. I got to the Traffic Department and looked for someone to type the details of my insurance on the Registration form. I paid 10 rials for that.

So went in and hoped for the best. This time, all my documents got cleared and was given my 2009 stickers and after a while, my car Istimara/registration. Whew! I really felt happy when I got the stickers as it meant that this would all soon finish.  I immediately placed the stickers on the car plates and drove away happy!