Govt mulls tariffs on unsafe cars

The Government is considering new steps to force hundreds of thousands of potentially unsafe cars off New Zealand’s roads, including making it more expensive to bring them into the country.

Documents obtained under the Official Information Act show Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency is assessing a range of measures to wean the country off its reliance on cars with poor safety ratings, which are disproportionately implicated in deadly and injurious crashes.

These include placing tariffs on the import of cars that have a low safety rating and offering ex-rental vehicles to low income families driving old dungers.

It comes as the final road toll for 2020 of 320 deaths was described as ‘‘sad and disappointing’’, virtually unchanged from 2019 after the effect of the Covid-19 lockdown is taken into account.

Mike Noon, of the Automobile Association (AA), said New Zealand needed to take a serious look at the number of unsafe older vehicles being imported.

‘‘We’re importing cars into New Zealand that you can’t send to Africa,’’ he said.

‘‘A lot of cars that we’re buying from Japan, we don’t have a lot of competition for because no-one else wants them.’’

Noon wanted the Government to adopt a whole-fleet strategy to reduce the number of unsafe vehicles on the road.

‘We need to think about what we want the fleet to look like in five, 10, 20 years because everything we bring in today will be with us for the next 20 years. Our fleet is ageing, and the safety features just aren’t there on the older cars, which means you have a much higher risk of being injured in a crash,’’ he said.

Transport agency figures reveal a disproportionate number of fatal crashes in 1- and 2-star safety rated vehicles.

In the five years to the end of 2019, more than half of all drivers involved in a deadly or severely injurious crash were driving a less safe car. This is despite these vehicles making up just 41 per cent of vehicles on the road.

They were also less likely to have a warrant of fitness, with 64 per cent of all vehicles without a warrant being deemed less safe.

The Government has previously floated the banning all imports of 1- and 2-star vehicles, which would have blocked some of our most popular models, including the Mazda Demio, and all pre-2016 Suzuki Swifts.

However, documents show this idea seems to have been dropped in favour of approaches, such as higher tariffs and more education.

A Waka Kotahi spokesman said the agency was focused on changes that would not need to go through Parliament.

‘‘The ideas were gathered from a number of sources who were asked to ‘think outside the square’. The board wanted to consider initiatives that could be initiated directly by Waka Kotahi without requiring legislative or regulatory change,’’ the spokesman said.

The agency is also considering a threeyear pilot test to replace vehicles in lowincome households with former rental cars. The proposed social leasing scheme would target people who may be at risk of financial stress due to car loans, maintenance costs, or running costs, as well as reduced access to safe, clean vehicles.

A number of policy changes are also being considered to ensure vehicles sold to scrapyards must be dismantled, rather than repaired and put back on the road.

The average age of a car in New Zealand is 14.5 years, one of the oldest in the OECD.

‘‘We’re importing cars into New Zealand that you can’t send to Africa.’’ Mike Noon

Automobile Association