The ACT Labor Party has announced that in government it would reintroduce annual testing of motor vehicles. It would test new cars and then at the third, fifth and seventh year and every year after that. It would reopen Phillip testing station to serve the southern suburbs and to lessen waiting times.
Labor argues that the cost saving of $600,000 a year in closing Phillip and testing only on change of ownership is a false economy because a road death costs the community an average of $750,000 and a serious injury more than $100,000.
The trouble with Labor’s argument is that the chain of causation is a long one. It assumes that defective cars cause significant death and injury and that the defect would have been picked up in an annual test and remedied. There are no firm data on defects and injury, but most put defects as a contributory cause of accidents at less than 5 per cent. It is likely that most of these defects would exist even in a testing regime because cars deteriorate during the year after the test.
The cost benefit of testing is not established, at best it seems an even proposition. Another trouble with Labor’s argument is that it does not add the cost to motorists in time, money and risk in taking the car to the registration station. These costs must be considerable.
There are better ways to spend money to improve road safety than to reintroduce annual testing. Driver attitude and incompetence is the greatest cause of road death and injury.
No doubt an annual test would catch some vehicles otherwise left on the road unroadworthy. A monthly or daily test would be even more effective. The question is balancing the cost and inconvenience of testing with whatever benefit might flow. Since testing was dropped road deaths and injury have not skyrocketed. The cost of testing doe snot seem worth it.