Car owners across Malaysia went through a brief period of scare this month when the government once again brought up the topic of a Vehicle End of Life Policy.
This time, the lifespan being bandied about was 12 years. Given that a lot of the lower income group tend to take 9 year loans to buy their cars, this would mean an additional loan free period of only 3 years before their cars have to be scrapped.
There can be many reasons why the government could want to implement such a scheme. We think it's to boost a stagnating Total Industry Volume, which basically means how many vehicles are sold every year. More car sales also means more excise duty, import duty and other taxes collected, which will boost government income.
Many less infuriating reasons can be given. The official reasoning thrown about this time is safety, and government agency MIROS attempted to prove a point by crash testing a 1990 Proton Saga and showing us the devastating results.
Nevermind that crash testing a car that's nearly double the age of the proposed 12 year lifespan doesn't really do anything to reinforce the proposed tenure. And if you want to talk about crash safety technology period, since the original Proton Saga was based on the 1983 Mitsubishi Lancer Fiore, we are talking about engineering that's about 30 years old now.
The reasoning is flawed because of how old models tend to be sold here in Malaysia for prolonged periods. Here's are some of the cars launched in 2012, which by now would have had to be scrapped if a 12 year lifespan cap was imposed.
Yes sir, according to MIROS, your Volvo XC90 is unsafe compared to a 2013 Perodua Myvi.
And then there's also the problem of differing standards used to build cars around the world. What if I tell you that for the longest time, certain cars (especially models that are ASEAN specific) that were sold here had less crash safety structures than the same models sold elsewhere?
The government has done good (although some would strongly argue the implementation timeline was botched) to introduce the R94/R95 specs as a requirement - suddenly items like side impact protection beams that were missing in our Malaysian spec cars got reintroduced. But there are really a lot of death traps on the road disguised as shiny new cars of less than 5 years old.
Thankfully the government has seemed to have backed down once again from the proposal. Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Abdul Aziz Kaprawi announced yesterday in the Parliament that the government had no plans as of now to impose a lifespan cap on cars because it did not want to burden the public.
If the government wants to make sure we are all travelling in safer cars, they should start by introducing mandatory periodical safety inspections instead. And the authority performing these safety inspections ideally should not be a monopoly. If we have to live with a crappy safety shell at least we should make sure that the car is moving with good brakes and tyres with plenty of thread.
As you know the public transportation system really has issues in Malaysia. When I was going to college in Pusat Bandar Damansara, a journey that would take about 35 minutes by car took me about 2 to 2 and a half hours by public transport. On a student budget, any car would have had been welcome at that time. The proposed rail systems are also very Klang Valley centric - what of the rest of the country?
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