Vehicle maintenance to save lives, reduce emissions

A campaign by the Motor Trade Association (MTA) around vehicle maintenance to ensure vehicle safety and to reduce emissions has support from transport minister Michael Wood.

The MTA provides advice on its website, noting that while cars are now well built they still have wear-and-tear on critical components such as tyres, brakes, steering, and suspension – with even EVs still needing these components regularly checked.

Wood thanked the association for its work at a “Saving Lives. Reducing Emissions” MTA showcase in Parliament on August 10 before about 80 guests, including representatives of most professional automotive bodies.

Noting about one person is killed on New Zealand roads daily and a person injured every hour, Wood says the Government’s Road to Zero road safety strategy includes improving safety and performance of New Zealand’s vehicle fleet and that the warrant/certificate of fitness regime will be investigated to ensure it remains fit for purpose for future road safety requirements.

“We have committed to undertake a programme of work to raise safety standards for vehicles entering the fleet,” Wood says.

“We also need to increase understanding of vehicle safety and this includes examining the options to increase the uptake of these technologies into the fleet.”

Wood says work on raising awareness of the importance of safety ratings as the key measure of vehicle’s safety performance is already underway and showing positive results in public attitude surveys.

The Ministry of Transport aims to start work on the regulatory vehicle safety programme late next year.

Wood explains that reducing carbon emissions is a key priority for the Government, “and transport has a critical role to play in the transition to a net-zero carbon economy by 2050”.

“We cannot afford to delay in the fight against climate change.”

Transport produces 43% of New Zealand’s CO2 emissions and 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Cleaning up the light vehicle fleet is necessary to achieve a major emissions reduction, the Government earlier this year announcing a sustainable biofuels mandate, the Clean Car Standard requiring vehicle importers to improve the emissions profile of new and imported used cars, and the Clean Car Discount which offers major incentives to get drivers behind the wheel of an EV or plug-in hybrid (PHEV).

The full scheme due to be launched next year introduces a fee on high polluting vehicles as well as a broader range of rebates to encourage the uptake of hybrid and low emission vehicles.

“Nearly 2000 new and imported used EVs and PHEVs were purchased in July, so we can see there is a clear demand for affordable EVs from the motoring public,” Wood says.

A vehicle scrappage scheme indicated by the MTA could be considered in the first Emissions Reduction Plan later this year, he adds.

“The Government is interested in exploring all available options to help New Zealanders transition away from unsafe, higher-emitting and aged vehicles to cleaner, safer and more affordable low-emissions cars.”

MTA advocacy and strategy manager Greig Epps says the scrappage scheme could provide a “decent credit” for people wanting to get rid of older and possibly unsafe, polluting vehicles that they could put towards something better, of particular advantage to lower income families.

He says research suggests vehicles with odometer readings exceeding 150,000km could be degraded by up to 45%.

While emissions testing could become part of the warrant of fitness regime, Epps says the testing schedule needs to be decided, for instance whether it could be introduced for a new vehicle after three years then applied every two years.

Most vehicles around 15 years of age fail their warrants of fitness about 50% of the time, so cars might be scrapped that are around 17 to 19.7 years of age.

Epps says more work needs to be done on such schemes and that meanwhile anyone concerned about their vehicle should seek expert help.