of license plate and numbering system

LAST week, there were indignant emails accusing the Ministry of Transport of seeking to develop a new flow of revenue from a revised system of automotive licence plates.
The premise of the argument is that there are 20 million vehicles registered on the Road Transport Department's records. Another 500,000 vehicles continue to be registered annually.
If you do the maths, then this is a big source of potential revenue - it will run to RM2 billion, assuming that each number plate costs RM100 and there are already 20 million vehicles on the road. Of course there is no such thing.
Despite there being no end-of-life policy like Japan or Singapore, many vehicles have already succumbed to rust, lack of spare parts, written off in accidents and theft. Probably there are 10 million vehicles still on the road. That's still RM1 billion, if one smart number plate costs RM100.
If that's not enough, just make it RM200 per smart number plate. Probably, this is just a rumour and to be dismissed like any other outrageous email about government conspiracies.
On the other hand, we should ask the relevant government officials what precisely are they planning for the day when we run out of alphabets for our car and bike licence plates: do we go to a four alphabet system or follow the British system or what?
Just do some simple arithmatics and you can tell when we'll arrive at WYY 9999. Nothing wrong with WYYA XXXX, but it's a logical opportunity to start a new numbering system so that a number plate isn’t too big and still allow a driver or an enforcement authority to visually identify the origin of the driver or the vehicle.
On this note, it's probably a logical opportunity to introduce a new numbering system on a smart licence plate that's embedded with a radio frequency identification chip (RFID). This should work with proposed systems for toll collection and area road pricing. What's wrong however is to introduce laws or regulations without any prior public briefing.
Proposed laws should be brought up in parliament by the respective minister to be debated.
In California, a Los Angeles senator recently proposed an electronic number plate that's so smart that it displays advertisements when the car is stopped at traffic lights or junctions. The advertisements are aimed at the driver of the following car. The senator argues that this will earn money for the government authorities and at minimal or even no cost to the motorist.
Whatever it is, it's time for the Ministry of Transport in Malaysia to be more vigilant of what its department is doing and to discuss proposed regulations so that the objectives of the policy makers are achievable rather than being counter productive.
One specific and recent incident involves the introduction of permits to allow for 74-tonne (six-axle) articulated rigs.
These are now being withdrawn because they are found to be ultra vires load limits issued by other government departments, in this case the Public Works Department's bridge section.
It's also a good time for the ministry to issue a directive banning its public servants who, upon retirement, take up private sector appointments that expose them to conflict-of-interest positions.
Transport Ministry civil servants are in high demand because they have proved themselves as tremendous assets in private companies. For instance, one big new industry is that of rebuilding trucks. This industry was legitimised when a senior Ministry of Transport civil servant created the enabling law and ushering it through gazettement. Almost immediately after retirement, he was made a director of one of the rebuilding truck companies. Did he make the law for his own interest of for that of the nation?
There are two sides to this story. Are our top officials underpaid in comparison to the power they hold while in office?
Perhaps these top officers should be paid enough and given a big gratuity, say 200 times of last drawn pay that they won't have to worry about their retirement.
The other side of the story is that are they so unemployable that they have to resort to self serving, if not devious, retirement programmes? The best way then is for greater public participation of planned projects and the open tender system if projects are to be implemented. Haven't these wayward officials heard of Wikileaks yet?

Car market

Commenting on our editorial last week and arguing for Malaysia's opening of the automotive market sooner rather than the World Trade Organisation (WTO) mandated 2015, some readers questioned the rationale as Peugeot had already selected Malaysia as its regional right hand drive hub, starting with the Peugeot 206.
Well, the volume is not what it should be.
The Malaysian car industry volume could be far bigger, probably even twice its current size, if the regional market is really open.
The Thais and the Indonesians are not stupid. When they see that Malaysia insists on tariff and non-tariff barriers to protect its automotive industry, they will also do things to keep out significant numbers of Made-in-Malaysia cars entering their markets.
Of course, it's not easy for a decision maker to do something that might hurt a national car project, but on the other hand, think about the benefits of a bigger market and more business for most of the Malaysia-based automotive companies and their suppliers.
The nation and its employable workforce will benefit and the mollycoddling of some undisciplined workers by subsidies and other uncompetitive practices must cease as soon as possible, otherwise the blooming of the automotive industry might just mean more foreign workers.
And the suffering of the national car industry will be a short term thing - it will sooner rather than later do the technical and branding partnership that it needs.
As for Perodua, you’ll see its Daihatsu/Toyota shareholders flying to grow its regional market share from its current insignificance.