Local Councils To Be Empowered To Remove Abandoned Vehicles - Anthony Loke

Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Parliament lobby today, Transport Minister Anthony Loke has proposed to simplifying the de-registration process of abandoned vehicles. He hopes that through this new method, local councils can dispose of these neighbourhood eyesores in a legal manner and swiftly.

Currently, there isn't a straightforward process to de-register a vehicle, which makes it very time consuming and tedious for local councils to remove these abandoned vehicles. Vehicles that have been towed and placed at the depot ended up congesting the said area.

According to Loke, there are about 60,000 abandoned vehicles in the country. The Transport Minister first spoke about this proposal back in August.

In a matter pertaining to the Road Transport Department (JPJ), Loke said vehicle franchise holders will need to fork out a nominal fee during the Vehicle Type Approval (VTA) or homologation procedure.

“At present, there are a lot of procedures and inspections involved but the government does not charge any fee. So we will now charge a nominal fee to cover administrative cost borne by the JPJ,” said Loke.

The VTA procedure is only submitted for application of introduction of an all-new vehicle (automobiles, motorcycles, commercial vehicles, etc) and is done on the first units (usually fresh out of the assembly plants).

As it is only submitted once, the popular Transport Minister assured that the fee will not result in a hike in vehicle prices as the VTA covers a blanket approval for that one particular model.

In a flow chart prepared by JPJ, the department targets to complete the entire approval procedure in 20 days and then issues an Approval Certificate for each variant of the vehicle (e.g. Ford Ranger Raptor, Wildtrak, 2.2 XLT Plus, 2.2 XLT, 2.2 XL Manual, and 2.2 XL Automatic). 

The procedures that JPJ conducts includes dynamic vehicle testing (braking system in particular), emission certification, component marking, and verifying the extensive list of UNECE test reports.

In the abovementioned press conference that was reported by NST, Loke also said the Transport Ministry will impose a fee or charge on those who have received approval to use dark glass for their vehicles.

He said exemptions will be given to vehicle owners who are required to have dark glass due to medical conditions.

Loke added, ”There is no automatic approval as they must be eligible first to use the tint and apply for it and pay a fee.”

These were part of the Ministry’s proposed topics in The Road Transport (Amendment) Bill 2018 that was tabled by the Minister today. If passed, enforcement and implementation can be as soon as January 2019.

Abandoned vehicles photo credit: Liang