Why do delivery riders need their own safety checklist?
A delivery rider spends the whole shift in traffic, on two wheels or in a small car, stopping dozens of times, and through the Gulf summer heat. The vehicle checklist used for trucks misses most of what matters to them: protective gear, the delivery box, the phone mount, water and rest.
Gulf authorities have also written specific rules for delivery work in the last two years: what a delivery motorbike must carry and how old it may be in Saudi Arabia, how many orders a rider may take at midday in the UAE, which lanes delivery bikes may use in Dubai and when they may not ride at all in Kuwait. The checklist puts the rider, the bike and those rules in one place.
How to use the checklist
- Set it up: as-of date, how early to warn before documents expire, the maximum motorbike age and the training interval.
- Register riders and vehicles with every document date. Delete columns that do not apply to your country or contracts.
- Check every rider every day before the first order. Any Fail means Do not ride until it is fixed.
- Log every incident, including near misses and heat illness, with the cause and the action taken.
- Review the summary each month and fix the documents, bikes and items that keep coming up.
What Gulf rules apply to delivery riders?
- Saudi Arabia, motorcycle goods transport: the Transport General Authority's executive regulation, as reported on 8 August 2026, requires an operating card for each motorcycle, an operating age of no more than 4 years from the model year, motorcycles linked to the authority's platform, goods in an approved box rather than a backpack, a phone holder, no passengers, and riders wearing a helmet, gloves, elbow and knee protection and a protective jacket.
- Saudi Arabia, delivery activity: the delivery regulation requires a driver card for establishment drivers and the approved uniform, and bars assigning more than one order at a time to a bike rider (Okaz, 25 September 2025).
- UAE, 15 June to 15 September: from 12:30 to 15:00 a rider may not be assigned more than three orders, total delivery time should not exceed 60 minutes, deliveries on foot are not allowed and riders cannot be forced to work (MoHRE rules, Khaleej Times, 3 July 2026).
- Dubai: since 1 November 2025 delivery bikes may not use the two leftmost lanes on roads with five or more lanes, or the leftmost lane on roads with three or four lanes (Dubai Media Office, 19 October 2025).
- Kuwait, 1 June to 31 August: delivery motorbikes may not operate between 11:00 and 16:00 (People Matters, 1 June 2026).
The Gulf rules sheet gives each rule with its link. These are summaries of what was reported, not the rule texts, and they change; check the current text with the authority. To plan riders around the midday rules, use the Delivery Rider Capacity Planner.
What does the daily pre-ride check cover?
Document status uses the as-of date: Expired when the date has passed, Due soon within the warning period (30 days in the example), Valid otherwise. Operating age is the as-of year minus the model year, compared with the limit for the vehicle type.
Worked example: four riders on 21 October 2026
- Motorbike 5678 BCD is a 2021 model: 5 years old against a 4-year limit, so it shows Over the limit, and its registration, insurance and operating card expire on 2 November: Due soon.
- Motorbike 9012 CDE has expired insurance, no approved box and tracking not confirmed: three flags on one row.
- Rider Bilal Khan's license expired on 12 October and his safety training from September 2025 is past its 12-month interval: Expired document.
- On 18 October two of four checks failed, one for gloves and one for the box latch, so the summary shows a 50% fail rate for the month and lists both items.
- The incident log has a near miss on King Fahd Road and a heat illness after a third midday order; the second is still open.
Common mistakes with rider safety
- Checking bikes, not riders. Gear, water and fitness fail more often than brakes.
- Only logging injuries. Near misses show the junction or the habit before someone is hurt.
- Trusting the contractor's list. Keep the expiry dates yourself for every rider who carries your orders.
- Treating heat as a summer poster. Midday limits, water and rest stops belong in the shift plan.
- Old bikes kept "one more season". Where an age limit applies, an over-age bike is out of use, not due for replacement.
What the template does not do
The workbook does not replace the rules themselves, a medical assessment or your insurer's requirements. Which documents a rider needs depends on the country, the city and whether the rider is your employee, a contractor or works through a licensed company. The rules sheet records what was reported on the dates shown; check the current text with the transport authority, labor ministry or traffic department. For truck and van drivers, use the Vehicle Inspection Checklist.