A scheme aiming to reduce pollution from high-emission luxury cars, by limiting their circulation to weekends and public holidays, has come under heavy fire from environmentalists who expressed doubts on the intentions behind it.

While Edward Mallia argued that trying to curb emissions in such a manner was little more than “wishful thinking”, former Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Michael Briguglio was even more scathing, branding the scheme as “a joke”.

The scheme was announced last week by Transport Malta, with the stated aim of helping reduce emissions during week days.

Owners of high performance sports cars and motorcycles will be given the option of saving thousands of euros in registration tax if they limit use of such vehicles to weekends and public holidays. Any breach of this condition could lead to a hefty fine and full payment of the registration tax.

The scheme only applies to new registrations – owners of vehicles already in circulation are not eligible.

While the initiative is being portrayed by the transport watchdog as an environmental measure, questions were immediately raised about whether this was the right approach to address emissions.

Prof. Mallia was critical of the measure while questioning the intentions behind it.

The scheme, he said, seemed to be little more than “wishful thinking” as it was not supported by any evidence to corroborate the claim that these vehicles contributed to a significant fraction of traffic pollution.

The fact that no effort was made to obtain data from the National Statistics Office to back this claim raised questions on the motives behind the measure, he argued.

The end result may be to encourage more “jay-riding” in “high level, high powered, high emission cars” during weekends, compromising road safety.

He also raised doubts on the minimum Euro 4 emissions standard required to be eligible in the scheme. He said that recent results produced by Dutch testing firm TNO on Euro 5 diesel vehicles showed that emissions on the road were five times higher than those in laboratory conditions.

Dr Briguglio did not mince his words: “If this is the authorities’ response to reducing toxic traffic emissions, the scheme is nothing more than a joke in bad taste.

“This is a complete farce when considering that in a recent parliamentary question it transpired that in the last 22 months just 38 vehicles had failed emission tests,” he added.

Dr Briguglio argued that if authorities wanted to crack down on traffic emissions, there had to be stricter enforcement by traffic wardens and tighter controls during vehicle roadworthiness tests.

The scheme applies to M1 category vehicles, which may carry no more than eight passengers in addition to the driver and whose emissions need to be at least 221g/km. In the case of motorcycles the minimum engine capacity must be 801cc. Owners of such vehicles could save 60 per cent of the registration tax, and would be given special registration plates in red, to differentiate them from the rest of the fleet.

A minimum level of registration tax equal to €2,000 for cars and €1,000 for motorcycles has been established.

It pays to be a Sunday driver!

A look at UK website Autotrader revealed that the cost of importing second hand luxury sports car which have been on the road for less than a year would be significantly reduced under this scheme. As a matter of fact Sunday drivers could save more than €80,000 on top brands such as Lamborghini, Ferrari and Aston Martin.

Source: Autotrader UK