Ban those old cars!!!!!

[Wombat]

So it rears its ugly head again...this idea (or one very similar to it) came out back in the eighties, then the nineties. They must be hoping people forget quickly...unfortunately, I don't...

"Crush a bomb: car industry stimulus proposal
Monday March 23, 2009, 10:36 am

The car industry wants people to be paid to crush their cars and use the money to buy new, more efficient vehicles.
The Motor Traders' Association (MTA) of New South Wales has written to federal Treasurer Wayne Swan with the plan, under which people would receive a $3,000 certificate in return for offering their car for the scrap heap.
Cars more than 10 years old and with a re-sale value of under $3,000 would be eligible for the scheme, which MTA chief executive James McCall says would get unsafe, polluting cars off the road.
"The majority of the cars that would come under the scheme would be pre-1987 and wouldn't have catalytic converters in them, which means they'd be spewing out pollution at a great rate," he said.
"It's a good opportunity to get them off the road.
"Cars under $3,000 are also often not safe and this would be a great contribution to public safety."
Mr McCall estimates there are between 1 and 1.5 million eligible cars in Australia, and this plan would see that number of cars head to the crushing yard over three years.
This would require $4.5 billion in federal funding, but with $1.5 billion recouped in GST revenue. The MTA has commissioned Access Economics to produce more detailed economic modelling.
The scheme appears to present some car owners with a difficult offer to refuse, with the certificate set at $3,000 regardless of the value of the car.
"If you've got a bomb worth $500 and you're driving it around, it'll qualify. If you've got one worth $2,500 it'd qualify. Get them off the road," Mr McCall said.
The crushing for cash plan is based on systems already in place in Germany, France and Brazil, with legislation in front of the United States Congress as well.
"In Germany where the system's working very well, there's been a 10 per cent increase in car sales. That is significant," he said.
He says a system in Japan whereby cars over five years old cannot be re-registered also shows how getting old cars off the road helps the economy and the environment.
"It keeps the roads safe; it keeps the atmosphere clean, because the newer the car the better it is in terms of pollution control; and of course it boosts the economy.
"They've seen the benefits for years."
The suggestion comes after Australian Bureau of Statistics (ASX: ABS.ax) figures showed new vehicles sales fell to a six-year low in February."

So...it's better for the environment to keep replacing your vehicle every few years, thereby keeping factories spewing out pollution, not to mention the production of plastics and trying to get rid of the old cars...yep, another idea from the shining light of ecological awareness, Japan (and pass me that whale burger while you're at it, will you Hiro?).
I first remember this idea being put forward in Australia by Mazda...of course it was for the environment and safety, nothing to do with increasing sales.... The talk back then was of banning cars five years and older, and making, yes, MAKING, people buy new cars. This died quietly.
The second time it was much the same idea, but put forward by green groups, along with the motor industry.
Now it shows up again...but it's all for the good of the environment and safety, because we all know that older cheaper cars are "often not safe"...

Now, we must also remember that in some countries, they actively hammer older car owners, to the extent of having things like "clunker laws", which mean if you have something like, say, an old 1970 Hemi Barracuda sitting up on blocks beside your house, and it is visible "from a public road", and a neighbor complains about it, it will be confiscated and crushed...no matter how much it is worth to you. The case that sticks in my mind was a guy in a state of the USA (which I cannot remember, but Wisconscin springs to mind) who had a classic Oldsmobile 455 with the motor out of it sitting under a tarp behind his house (The engine was away getting rebuilt). It was taken under the clunker laws, as a road ran behind his house and a neighbor put in an official complaint. He had to undergo a rather protracted court case to get it back.
Think of this sort of thing the next time some safety nut employed by the big car makers or an environmental group tries to push this idea.

[cracker]

what about those of us who have cars after 1987 with no cats.....

[88GreenVN]

Goes out to buy up clunkers in the hope of making serious money

[hellbound]

thats good for people with older cars around but this seem like they are trying to get the jobs back for the people in holdens?

[danja]

Heh, watch the used-car market flourish if this does ever happen. Wreckers will be re-registering their rolling shells with lawnmower engines in them to get $3000 a pop!

[TUF UTE]

does this mean we can get rid of all starfire equipped commodores

[evil_monkey]

i was reading earlier that they only give you like a 3 grand voucher to go only towards a new car at a dealership

[Wombat]

evil_monkey is right...I too immediately had thoughts of our old 1982 Rodeo ute, the body of which is only in one peice because all the rust molecules are holding hands, and getting $3000 for it!
But then I noticed that it said "certificate"...they wouldn't give you cash, it would be a certificate which could obviously only be spent on a brand new car...
As for the used car market...there wouldn't be much of a market...cars older than 5 years simply wouldn't exist. In places like Singapore, the registration is so restrictive and massively expensive, that old cars are simply unavailable. In some places in Europe, old cars are sought overseas as nothing exists inside thier country. Japan has virtually none of it's early motoring history in existance (except a few in the hands of dedicated collectors) because of thier restrictive registration laws and cheap new cars...that's why Japanese collectors will pay top dollar for older Japanese cars and motorbikes which aren't worth a real lot here.

[sKitzzo]

Goes out to buy up clunkers in the hope of making serious money

Exactly what i was thinking rofl...

[mofo sixx]

Exactly what i was thinking rofl...

copy that

all of a sudden the value of these clunkers goes up

[Astranomical]

I do think its quite ironic that such a proposal has been put together by, of all people, the MTA at a time when sales are down.

[TVR-190]

send in 10 clunkers and u got urself a new car

[Wombat]

You can bet your balls that if this stupid proposal was every brought in (and any government that did wouldn't last at the next election), it would be exactly like the small car yards that have the same "$3000 minimum trade on anything you can drive in" deals from time to time...the fine print says one car per customer, only on approved cars, etc.
Who is to say that they wouldn't say that to qualify for the deal you had to agree buy a small economical car or a hybrid with the $3000 "certificate"...after all, it's for the good of the environment...

[Astranomical]

Yeah...back when I was in Bundy there was a dealer who would often do those "Bring in ya old bomb, if you can push it, pull it or drive it in we'll give you $1000 cash on the dash" deals. I actually knew someone who had I think an old Nissan Pintara...it was old and shit, but it was fully registered, in good running order, etc, and they wouldn't take it.

[88GreenVN]

Pick up cars for $100. Make it drivable (cable ties, wire and gaffer tape) go and purchase $3,500 car.

Win Win.

[jakbob]

First anna bligh gets back in and now this! Could things get any worse?

Well I might consider scrapping my $400 daily driver VC and getting 3 grand towards a new car - when, and only when, hell freezes over. I might think even more seriously when we elect a small deformed potato as prime minister.
Otherwise they can pry the keys from my cold dead hands. But I guess they don't need the keys to scrap it.
But seriously, what a load of complete and utter bulls#&t. You can't tell me that one car with a lifespan of 30yrs+ will contribute to global warming more that 6 cars with a lifespan of only 5 years. Manufacture of one good car = n tonnes of co2. Manufacture of six crap cars = 6n tonnes of co2. Go figure.

[jakbob]

Beside, I don't think they'll give you $3000 on every old car you scrap. And it will be on the condition that you purchase a new car.

[88GreenVN]

And if your driving a $300 bomb - how you going to buy a new car????

Not going to work at all me thinks

[Wombat]

The scary thing is that it would only take a stroke of the beuracractic ****...sorry, "pen", to bring in something as stupid as this...look at the facts...they can bring in new road rules and laws at a whim, they can bring in new design rules which they do not tell people much about which make a mod you had last week suddenly illegal, etc, etc...
Nothing to stop us waking up tomorrow and finding out that KRudd has suddenly got a hard on over the environment and new cars for all...and bringing in just this plan, over a carefully set up phase-in period of course...

I had the same idea GreenVK...if someone has been driving a crappy old sub-$3000 car for years, can you honestly see them suddenly using thier shiny new certificate and coughing up another $30,000+ for a brand new family car?

[Ado]

Goes out to buy up clunkers in the hope of making serious money

I hear that.

[daron]

if it goes ahead car yards will just put their prices up 3 k anyways like they did with gas get 2 k from gov gas prices went up 2 k

[VL_5SPEED]

They can suck my balls. Id rather drive my 20 year old car then drive a boring new car.

[shonky12]

when will it come in

[Astranomical]

Yay its a return of our old friend *laughs*

Anyhoo, if you read the article, you'd realise that they haven't actually done anything about it yet, its simply been proposed to the federal Treasurer by the MTA. Nothing's actually been done yet. It may never happen, and hopefully, it won't.

[danja]

when will it come in

Depends, I think there should be a petition about it, that way we can tell them when it should come in.

Unfortunately I don't know how to write a petition