Although some countries – like our English speaking friends across the pond – might not require you to legally have your car checked once a year, here in the UK and elsewhere it’s a pretty common practice. Whether it’s known as the MOT or something else though, it’s generally considered important to have your car looked over at least once every twelve months to make sure that it’s safe for use on the road. However, in Hawaii, ministers think this might not be needed anymore and is in-fact, something that could be done away with, perhaps extending it to two years.
To see if that is actually the case, ministers at the State House in Hawaii will be voting on a potential change to the law, making it so that inspections of a vehicle only legally need to take place once every two years instead. The vote will take place this Wednesday.
Proponent of the change, state represenative Chris Lee believes that the whole process is too much of a hassle and ultimately leads to a lot of time wasting, which he claims could be hindering the Hawaiian economy.
“I think a lot of folks spend a lot of time waiting in lines and especially now when you have to go in and the process is more rigorous,” he said. “You have to take a lot of pictures and everything else, lots of documentation needed, it’s become a little more difficult for people to manage.”
However, this isn’t the same way that other representatives look at it. They see the slow-process as a perfect example of why it’s needed, suggesting that the process would be far faster if people were more organised and took better care of their vehicles.
“In 2014 there was 106,000 this program caught with expired registration. There was nearly 10,000 more with improper insurance,” said Department of Transportation Spokesperson Tim Sakahara. “Thousands more had defective tires, busted brake lights or headlights that weren’t working properly. All those things can contribute to accidents, or even worse, heaven forbid, a fatality.”
To see what the man on the street thought of the debate, KITV spoke to a few Hawaii residents. Although some were in favour of keeping the current system of yearly checks, and some suggested it should be semi-annually, overall the majority were in favour of extending the system to once every two years. When asked whether they thought that would impact the safety of Hawaiian cars and the country’s roads, most thought that it wouldn’t have any particularly bad drawbacks.
What do you guys think of this idea? An MOT can be expensive for some people, especially if they need to get a few things fixed, but surely that shows the system is working? Let us know in the comments below.
Image source: Elliot Brown
