Wong Wan, the director of the Transport Bureau, revealed yesterday that the bureau plans to amend the regulation on mandatory vehicle inspection. This will mean that vehicles will have to be examined by the government eight years after initial registration, instead of the current ten years.
“[The regulation] now is one mandatory examination after ten years. It may be that the first step is to adjust it to eight years. If we are going to further lower the number, we will refer to other places. It is like in Singapore where vehicles have to be inspected three years after it was first registered. It is seven years in Hong Kong… We estimated that the arrangement will start in the first half of 2016,” he said.
The director’s comment was in response to a question about controlling the growing number of motor vehicles in Macau. He said that the current annual growth of motor vehicles in Macau is six percent and claimed that the authorities cannot wait until the completion of the Light Rapid Transport before it starts controlling growth.
According to the General Policy of Land Traffic and Transportation of Macau, the government seeks to reduce the annual growth of motor vehicles to below four percent by 2020.
We hear rumours of corruption in the vehicle inspection system. If it is true, reducing the years won’t help much.