COVER FEATURE
INGENIEUR
COVER FEATURE
INGENIEUR
End-of-Life Vehicles Policy : Exploring the Human Factors and Impact to Road Safety
By Zulhaidi Mohd Jawi , Iskandar Abdul Hamid & Mohd Rasid Osman Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research ( MIROS )
The End-of-Life Vehicles or ELV policy has yet to begin in Malaysia and the Government is still looking for the best solution to complete the life cycle of cars . The National Automotive Policy ( NAP ), which was first introduced in 2006 ( NAP-2006 ) by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry ( MITI ) and has been reviewed in 2009 ( NAP-2009 ) and 2014 ( NAP-2014 ), can perhaps provide some reference regarding the effort to put the ELV policy into the system – or Malaysia ’ s ‘ automotive ecosystem ’. NAP-2006 had six main objectives and it did not cover ELV specifically , even though the words “ sustainable ” and “ consumer interest ” were mentioned . Meanwhile , in NAP-2009 , ELV became one of the policies under ‘ Section E : Efforts for Increased Safety ’ where the Ministry of Transport ( MOT ) was stated as one of the key players to build the ELV framework .
However , that specific item was taken off from the NAP-2009 framework shortly after the announcement due to public disapproval regarding the measure . It was speculated that the ‘ vehicle age limit ’ hit a sensitive chord amongst car owners . In the latest NAP-2014 , the measure was shifted to the Voluntary Vehicle Inspection Programme ( VVIP ) under the ‘ Section F : Safety ,
Security and Environment ’ – and item number 43 of the MITI document clearly mentioned that “ this is not meant to scrap cars on the basis of the age of the vehicles ”. The above-mentioned thrust ( Section F ) also explained measures related to VVIP and environmental concerns , among which are “ promoting the inspection of vehicles aged five years and above ” and “ to adopt the global 3R ( Reduce , Reuse , Recycle ) standard as Malaysian Standard ( MS )”.
Researchers at MIROS , especially from the Vehicle Safety and Biomechanics Research Centre ( VSB ), are interested in this specific issue for two reasons : firstly for road safety and secondly to assist the parent ministry ( MOT ) by providing insights and developing the ELV framework . The research team has established an on-going study called the ‘ automotive ecosystem ’ study – to represent the interaction between the industry and consumers ( car owners ) in the life cycle of cars . A few studies have been conducted by local universities on the subject ( 6R – Reduce , Reuse , Recycle , Recover , Remanufacture , Redesign ), but they have so far yielded insufficient data as evidenced by the country still lacking a deeper understanding of ELV-related technical and human factors .
20 VOL 70 APRIL-JUNE 2017