Abandoned vehicles face auction after 21 days under new rules – NRSA

Under the new rules, vehicle owners will be required to subscribe to a towing service or purchase an insurance policy that includes towing cover to ensure that vehicles involved in breakdowns or crashes are removed from the road without delay.

The Director of Registration, Inspection, and Compliance at the NRSA, Kwame Koduah Attuahene, said owners who fail to comply could have their vehicles compulsorily towed, with the cost charged to them.

“The law is that every vehicle owner will be required to subscribe to a towing service company or buy an insurance policy that has a towing service tied to it,” Mr Attuahene said.

He said unlike the previous regulations, which allowed motorists a grace period after a breakdown, the new rules require immediate action.

“Once your vehicle breaks down, the law now requires that immediately you must have it towed. In the old law, it gave you a 30-minute or one-hour grace period, but now the law is that as soon as you break down, you must have your vehicle towed,” he said.

Speaking at a national sensitisation programme on the Road Traffic (Amendment) Act, 2025 (Act 1153) and the Road Traffic Regulations, 2026 (L.I. 2519), Mr Attuahene said motorists must also place an advance warning triangle and notify their service provider when their vehicle becomes disabled.

The towing company is expected to notify the police or NRSA and arrange for the vehicle to be moved to a storage facility.

According to the NRSA, vehicles towed to a storage facility will initially be kept for a maximum of seven days, within which the owner is expected to reclaim them.

Where the owner fails to act, further steps will be taken towards a judicial auction.

Mr Attuahene said owners would receive a seven-day notice before the sale, while vehicles for which an auction is unsuccessful could eventually be confiscated by the state and possibly scrapped.

“After 21 days, you will be auctioned. You have seven days’ notice before the sale. And where the sale is unsuccessful, the state will confiscate the vehicle and possibly scrap it,” he said.

He said the measures were designed to prevent disabled and crashed vehicles from creating additional hazards on the roads.

“All of this is to ensure that we comply with the basic rule, which is that you must either subscribe or get a policy,” he said.