A Modest Proposal

It was a sad day in my household - I recognised that my ever increasing litany of injuries meant that I could no longer maintain the trusty 1983 Hilux. So off she goes.

We kept it around mainly to cart stuff to the tip - basically a trailer with an engine.

Why not a trailer? Because NZ has one of the most extreme Warrant of Fitness regimes in the world. It is remarkable in the fact that not only does it impose a high regulatory burden on the voting public, it is also ineffective at keeping dangerous cars off the road (I'll let you Google your own stats - they aren't hard to find.)

So here's my proposal for transport policy: remove the Wof and rego requirement for light trailers (under 750kg laden weight). That would capture most boat trailers, trailer tents and tool wagons for tradies.

Rego can be handled by attaching a supplementary plate, so it gets included as part of the towing vehicle (that's how much of the world does it, including the UK. You know, that place with less that half our road toll per km traveled.)

Safety is handled by the simple expedient of stopping dangerous vehicles and giving them a ticket to report for an inspection within 7 days.

It would be interesting to see how many old utes retired over the next couple of years. And I may even forgive them for imposing a new tax on me.