Highway Traffic Law No. 2918

Highway Traffic Law No. 2918 was adopted on 13 October 1983 and published in Official Gazette No. 18195 of 18 October 1983. Its purpose is to ensure traffic order on highways in terms of the safety of life and property and to determine the measures to be taken on all matters affecting traffic safety (Article 1). The Law has been amended many times, and the current text includes the changes made by Law No. 7574 of 12 February 2026.

What does the Law say about vehicle registration and scrapping?

The Law sets out the obligations of vehicle owners on registration and transfer in Article 20. When a vehicle subject to registration becomes scrap, its owner must apply within one month to the relevant traffic registration authority, or to the public bodies and natural or private-law legal persons designated by the General Directorate of Security, to have the registration cancelled. A tax identification number and the information and documents specified in the regulation must be provided for cancellation.

The same article states that the registration certificate remains valid until the vehicle is sold, transferred or scrapped. For the sale and transfer of registered vehicles, there must be no outstanding motor vehicle tax, tax penalty or traffic fine on the vehicle, and no restrictive measure or annotation on its record.

Can a scrapped vehicle be driven on public roads?

No. Under Article 21, driving a scrapped vehicle on public roads is prohibited. If such a vehicle is found being driven on a public road, the driver is fined, the vehicle is barred from traffic, and the civil authority additionally seizes it and its ownership passes to the state.

Law No. 7574 changed the heading of Article 21 to “vehicles scrapped and withdrawn from traffic”.

Where is the scrapping procedure regulated?

The Law does not go into procedural detail; it provides that the procedures and principles for scrapping vehicles are set by regulation (Article 21). The regulation applied in this area is the Regulation on Vehicle Sales, Transfer and Registration Services. Scrapping is carried out by notaries or the traffic registration units of the General Directorate of Security; the plates are cancelled and the registration certificate is annotated “scrapped”.

What does it mean for destruction and recycling?

The Law itself is not waste or destruction legislation, and it contains no rule on the environmentally sound disposal of a vehicle. Its contribution is the regime for the record that ends a vehicle’s legal life: the registration is cancelled, the plates are cancelled and a scrapped vehicle may not return to traffic. Dismantling, depollution and recovery of the vehicle are governed by the Regulation on the Control of End-of-Life Vehicles and the communiqué issued under it.

In practice the two fields work together. For end-of-life vehicles, the vehicle deregistration and disposal form is presented at the time of scrapping and documents that the registration has been cancelled and that the vehicle has been disposed of in an environmentally compatible way.

What should be watched in practice?

For the vehicle owner, the key point is the deadline: the application to cancel the registration of a vehicle that has become scrap must be made within one month (Article 20). Before scrapping, debts arising from the vehicle such as taxes and traffic fines must be cleared and there must be no restrictive annotations such as attachments or pledges on the vehicle record; the details are set in the regulation.

Reusing a scrapped vehicle can result in a heavy fine as well as seizure of the vehicle and transfer of ownership to the state. A vehicle should therefore not be abandoned in practice before the plate cancellation and annotation have been completed, and a vehicle holding a scrapping certificate must not be put back on the road.