Outdated procedure on engine number

The following letter was sent to the chairman, Malta Transport Authority (ADT), on March 2:

I wish to register a complaint regarding an outdated procedure which is causing unnecessary hardship to car owners. The background to this complaint is as follows:

My car was due for a Vehicle Roadworthiness Test (VRT) prior to road licence renewal on February 28. The garage mechanic told me that the car was in perfect condition but it would fail the VRT because the engine number had become illegible owing to superficial corrosion of the surface of the engine block. This, apparently, is a frequent occurrence. The mechanic explained that I would have to make an appointment with the Licensing Department to have the engine number stamped on the engine block.

I telephoned the Licensing Department on the morning of February 17 to arrange an appointment but I was told that my presence was required at Hall B. After completing a form at Hall B, I had to take it to the Police Examination Department, where I was given an appointment for February 28 (perversely, the day my licence expired).

On February 28 I again wasted the best part of another morning by having to take my car for an "inspection" at the Police Examination Department.

At this point, I have only been told that I cannot renew my car's road licence until the matter is settled and that "a file has to be opened" after I present certain documents to the Police Examination Department. I have already made two unnecessary visits to Floriana and I am no nearer to a solution. Moreover, I have no idea how long my car has to be kept off the road.

My comments are as follows:

1. The purpose of the VRT is to ensure the roadworthiness of a motor vehicle. The engine number has no influence on the roadworthiness.

2. It is unfair to deprive a person of the use of his car merely because the engine number has become illegible. Taking a person's car off the road causes unnecessary hardship, especially to working persons or the aged. The problem is compounded if they have no garage.

3. If there are compelling reasons for retaining the engine number as part of the VRT (it is no longer so in EU countries), then the police/licensing department should be reasonable and allow the car owner to continue using his/her car, provided that the engine number be restored within a specific stipulated period.

4. Depriving a lawful owner of a car in this way serves no purpose. If the aim of the current procedure is to prevent fraudulent tampering with car engines, merely keeping the car off the road is not going to make any difference whatsoever.

5. The procedure is unduly bureaucratic, protracted and consumer-unfriendly. Obliging people to be physically present to do things that can be done by mail, telephone or e-mail wastes time.

On a constructive level, here is a suggestion for a simplified consumer-friendly procedure whereby the car is not taken off the road and only one working morning is wasted.

a) If the engine number is found to be illegible during the VRT, this can be entered on the VRT form at the VRT centre, and the car owner can apply for renewal of the road tax in the usual way.

b) The owner receives a provisional licence disc and notification of a date when he is to take the car for restamping of the engine number and informed as to which documents he is to have in his possession by that time. If necessary an extra administrative charge is made when the engine number is restamped.

With this procedure only one trip to the Police Examination Department is needed and several working mornings are saved. The car owner also retains the use of his car.

The government has recently removed holidays in lieu in an attempt to boost productivity.

However, many government departments still insist on unnecessarily elaborate or purposeless bureaucratic procedures. These may require a number of visits to departments, as in this case, for which time off from work is required. This does not make sense.

Having one's car taken off the road for such a trivial reason is unjust and the time wasted to get it back on the road is counterproductive. This anomaly affects mostly pensioners (whose mobility can be seriously affected) and the less well off among us, since these people tend to own older cars.

I look forward to a positive outcome on this matter. (Dr G.G. Debono, MD)

On March 9, I asked the ADT chairman for his comments and, to date, I have not received any reply. Normally I send at least two reminders before going to print but this is causing so much unnecessary hardship to car owners that I must feature this case without further delay.

After all, this issue has already been referred to in an article in The Times ("Bureaucratic elephantiasis at the ADT", March 12) regarding the complicated procedure used by the Licensing Department to the detriment of car owners whose vehicle is found to have an unclear engine number during VRT testing.

In the meantime I invite readers who have had such experiences and are prepared to share them with fellow consumers, to write to me. Considering our 100 per cent rate of success in three campaigns we ran in this column, perhaps it is worth running a campaign on this issue. Readers are invited to send in their comments. Hopefully whoever is responsible will be persuaded to rectify the situation.

As examples I quote two cases of undue hardship resulting out of this absurd bureaucratic procedure. One is a workman who, besides having to walk to work, was unable to take his elderly mother, with whom he lives, for medical attention and hospitalisation.

The other concerns an elderly man who has been subjected to arbitrary deprivation of his car at a time when a close member of his family was seriously ill and he could not use his car to visit her. Indeed it could not have taken place at a worse time. The next morning she died and the only way he could go to hospital as quickly as possible was on a bicycle. There must be many other such cases where undue hardship is caused by this misguided bureaucracy.

I believe that this is quite a common occurrence but I am not sure of the numbers. It would be interesting to demand the number of cases from ADT. Briefly, it becomes impossible for these car owners to renew their car licence and so they are arbitrarily deprived of the use of their car.

In addition to the hardship caused by this, vehicle owners are required to go through an extended bureaucratic process involving repeat time-wasting visits to the licensing department to get their car back on the road again.

To cap it all, having been prevented from licensing their car, they are then fined Lm15, without having been warned in advance, for late payment. Any car owners who have fallen foul of this procedure are encouraged to write to me with details of their case. It is up to you to decide whether this is going to be our next campaign or not.