Roadworthiness test certificates

Please refer to your comments last Sunday regarding jalopies on the roads. Similar comments appeared in The Voyager magazine. I must say that I strongly differ.

My father, who is an elderly person, has had the same car for at least 40 years during which he has kept its engine running in tip-top condition. When it breaks down (as new ones do) he asks a mechanic or auto electrician to see to it.

What is most important, in my opinion, is that he respects his limits as well as the vehicle's limits, which is where, in my opinion, people like you are getting it all wrong. An old vehicle on the road does not spell danger.

You rightly said that you can ask competent authorities for their comments. Rather than comments, I would like to see the statistics of traffic accidents with the age of the people involved as well as the year of make of the cars involved. I bet the results would certainly make you change your opinion as well.

I will be looking forward to see these statistics. Till then I will be more than happy to drive my father's old car myself even though mine is a more recent model. (Antoinette Farrugia)

First of all, with due respect, I wouldn't presume to blatantly tell Ms Farrugia, "you got it all wrong". However it is a known fact that, from a car safety point of view, a lot of progress has been made in the past 40 years and more progress is being made. Moreover, everything has a lifespan, including the safety features of any car.

This is why roadworthiness tests are conducted all over the world. In any case, statistics show that the majority of accidents, including fatal accidents, are caused by reckless young drivers in modern fast cars.

The issue here is whether the roadworthiness tests are doing what they are supposed to do and one of the many questions raised is: Have they removed old jalopies from our roads? We still have cars on our roads which, at a glance, make you wonder how on earth they passed the Vehicle Roadworthiness Test (VRT). Indeed I dare say this is not necessarily limited to old vehicles.

For instance, if you know what to look for, a car that has non-standard tinted glass of a certain dark shade should not pass the VRT. Nor should a car that does not have clear, definitive light lamp units, particularly on the back.

Yet again I refer to the competent authorities and I ask for their comments, including statistics, to explain why we have so many cars on our roads which evidently cannot pass a VRT as per 1999 standards, let alone 2002 standards!

Is it true that VRT stations lose, on average, Lm6,000 a year? Could this be why the system has collapsed, so that dodgy vehicles get their VRT certificates from certain accommodating stations?

If we focus on numbers it is interesting to note that, while there are 24 VRT stations in Ireland, which has a population of three and a half million, there are 38 VRT stations in Malta, where the population is just over a tenth of that of Ireland. Evidently, something does not make sense here.

What matters however is that in this specific context we are being denied one of the eight internationally recognised and accepted rights, namely the right to safety.