LTNZ and AA ignoring widening gulf between new and used vehicle safety

Land Transport New Zealand and the Automobile Association, in furthering their mutual admiration society, are promoting ‘winners and losers’ in the new vehicle market with regard to vehicle safety. At the same time they are completely ignoring the fact that two thirds of the vehicles coming across New Zealand wharves would be extremely poor performers if subjected to the tests that they are judging new cars by.

“The average used import is over eight years old,” said Motor Industry Association CEO Perry Kerr,” and there is still a ludicrous loophole which skews the market towards four wheel drives which are even older and fail to meet even the minimum standard of frontal impact safety. While things like stability control are hugely positive developments, it’s simply grandstanding to be pushing for the compulsory fitment of such technology on new cars when we continue to encourage the importation of vehicles which are several generations behind the advent of such innovations.”

“Even the LTNZ/AA analysis of new vehicles is flawed, because their list of high-rating vehicles is far from complete,” said Mr. Kerr. “It’s irresponsible of them to direct consumers towards the vehicles that appear on their list, because many highly-rated models are not represented, either because they’re not sold in Europe or haven’t been tested in Australia for a variety of reasons.”

The MIA’s biggest concern however lies in the double standard the ‘Safety Police’ are adopting. “They’re failing to address the enormous road safety time bomb that we’re importing through older and older used imports, yet they’re quite happy to pick on new vehicle sellers for failing to have the latest safety engineering in models that are approaching the end of their lifecycle in a continually evolving industry,” said Mr. Kerr.

“We think it’s time that they took on some real responsibility for safety on the nation’s roads instead of fiddling around the edges, and the AA’s job should be to seek the highest possible standard of road safety for its members.”

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