WOF changes

The Herald reports:

The Government could scrap the need for a Warrant of Fitness on new cars under changes to the vehicle licensing regime.

New cars would first be checked two years after being sold, followed by inspections at four and six years. Thereafter, they would need a yearly Warrant of Fitness. The current six-monthly WoF on cars over six years old could be moved out to 12 months.

The changes are part of government proposals to lower the annual compliance costs of the WoF, vehicle registrations and the certificate of fitness and transport services licensing systems.

This seems pretty sensible for me. The timing of WOF checks should be based on the probability of there having been faults develop during that period which make the car less safe to drive. I don’t know what the data is, but this should be an evidence based decsion.

Opponents say changes would put people out of work, affecting Vehicle Inspection NZ, Vehicle Testing NZ stations and small garages.

“The neighbourhood corner garage relies on six-monthly WoFs for its bread and butter,” said one man. “Switching to a year on older cars and two years on new ones would force many of the smaller garages to close.”

Sigh. Arguments like this depress me. This is effectively arguing that the reason we require WOF checks, is to create jobs in garages. Well why stop there, let’s require monthly checks and that will be a huge boost for jobs in garages.

Sustainable jobs are those based on their being a legitimate demand for the associated services or goods.