With the aim of modernizing the vehicle fleet, reduce the amount of vehicles with mechanical problems and accidents, but at the same time improve the collection, Congress of Mayors seeks to provide banking benefits for purchasing newer cars.
Currently, there are in circulation in Uruguay 300,000 cars of pre-1990 models, of which 120,000 (40%) circulate in the capital, according to figures from the Congress of Mayors. This is a problem for traffic, because many of them have mechanical problems, whether with the lights, bodywork, brakes, shock absorbers or electricity.
The director of vehicle affairs of the Congress of Mayors and of Sucive, Cesar Garcia Costa, informed to Ambit that every year about 70,000 cars are removed from the vehicle fleet, while the number of brand new cars that “go out onto the streets” is about 50,000.
“It generates unsafety and is directly linked to the amount of accidents”, the hierarch mentioned.
A financial solution for municipalities
García Costa also pointed out another problem, in this case of a financial nature, for the municipalities. The amounts of the patents of vehicles prior to 1990 are at least three times smaller than new ones, in addition to having a high rate of late payment, which also affects tax collection.
Official data indicate that for models after 2012, which are considered “new,” the average non-payment of vehicle registration fees is 8%, while for those considered old, the rate is 50%.
A joint project
To move forward towards a solution to this problem, Garcia Acosta has been holding meetings with the Association of Automobile Brand Dealers (Ascoma) and the Uruguayan Automotive Trade Association (ACAU) with the idea of working together on a bill.
The initiative seeks to bring together the public and private financial sector to obtain reduced interest rates for those who replace old vehicles in car dealerships.
In this way, owners will be able to hand over their old cars and receive a “voucher” to acquire new vehicles. For the head of the agency that regulates the patent mechanism throughout the country, this proposal would put the entire vehicle system in motion and would allow the municipalities to “collect more and better patents,” he told Ambit.
At the same time, he reported that other projects are being worked on to improve the conditions of the vehicle fleet. One of them refers to security, installing the “digital license plate” through a TAG similar to that used for collecting tolls.
Thus, if the TAG and the license plates do not match, it would be easier to detect an irregularity to reduce or avoid what is known as “license plate cloning.”
Source: Ambito
