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For the Sake B40 Do Not Put Age Limits on Vehicles Until We Have Reliable Public Transportation System.
By Mihar Dias
(C) Copyright June 2022
Transport Minister, Wee Kah Siong is right, now is not the time to put age limits on vehicles plying our roads. “To tell people not to use cars, first, we must have a better public transport system,” he said. The public transportation system is far from complete.
Wee was responding to the press on a recent proposal from a group of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) researchers who suggested vehicles more than 10 years old should be banned to address problems of congestion on city roads.
B40 forms the bulk of those who use vehicles that are over 10 years old. They value these vehicles as a means to earn a living. Most would find it hard to replace the old with newer cars because of their low income and the increasing price of the latest models.
It is easy for academics in ivory towers to suggest eliminating old vehicles as a way of reducing congestion on the road but how do they propose to get these poor people to work, if you take away their only means of transportation.
On the other hand, the public transportation system in KL and most cities in the country are equally congested and not reliable. Unless and until these are fully addressed, putting an age limit on vehicles on the roads may not be a way to solve traffic congestion.
I wonder whether these academics do drive into Kuala Lumpur daily. The main congestion that seems to draw our attention is mostly during peak hours; every morning when commuters go to work and evenings when they return home.
I live outside KL city limits. By timing my departure from home just 5 to 10 minutes before 7 in the morning, I am able to avoid congestion and get into the centre of Kuala Lumpur unimpeded.
If I missed that window I would have to wait 2 hours after the usual jam to drive into KL. At 9 in the morning, the congestion is over and I could easily get into the city without being stuck in traffic.
Cities around the world face similar problems. We have to manage traffic flows. Humans everywhere do learn to live with road congestion in busy cities. Eliminating cars is not the only solution available.
From experience, voluntary car pooling seems to work in some cities. We in KL tried this half-heartedly a few years ago but eventually abandoned the idea when KL city roads improved and government servants moved to Putrajaya.
Allowing cars with number plates ending with odd and even numbers to enter city limits on alternate days too may eliminate 50% of vehicles on the road, daily. Some cities have implemented this idea with great success.
Similarly, organisations could stagger working hours to help ease congestion. Or they may want to encourage alternate work days in the office and working from home. The pandemic had prepared everyone to be able to work from home quite comfortably. Why not continue this practice and avoid traffic jams.
But whatever we decide to do all citizens must be won over through public relations campaigns and not by enforcement and hefty fines which would further anger the people who are already frustrated because of the inadequate and poorly integrated public transportation system.
These time-tried methods suggested above would be more welcoming than merely eliminating old vehicles on the roads. But the longer time solution is to improve the public transportation system and offer it as a viable alternative.
However, putting a stop to the manufacturing and assembling of motor vehicles will certainly reduce road congestion at the source, but nobody in his right mind would be willing to consider that as an option.
Mihar Dias is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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