NEWS

Electric Cars Will Be Introduced: LTA

The Fijian Government in­tends to introduce electric cars on our roads within the next 15 to 20 years as part of its National Action Plan. The focus especially is to
22 Sep 2018 11:56
Electric Cars Will Be Introduced: LTA
Some of Britain’s best electric cars.

The Fijian Government in­tends to introduce electric cars on our roads within the next 15 to 20 years as part of its National Action Plan.

The focus especially is to get electric buses on our roads.

During a presentation to stake­holders at the National Road Safety Campaign at Tanoa Plaza Hotel on Friday, Land Transport Authority general manager tech­nical and operation Faiyum Ali said providing safer vehicles was a strategic area of focus in the na­tional plan.

“For that, we need to have a con­ducive environment, in terms of charging stations and other things to be in place,” Mr Ali said.

“That is how we are going to­wards our plan in terms of hav­ing safer vehicles on our roads through inspections, doing our certificates for roadworthiness or certificate of fitness and on-site inspections.”

He said the responsibility of LTA was to improve roadworthiness of vehicles through regular man­datory inspections and frequent road inspections.

“In terms of Public Service Ve­hicles (PSV) we have undertaken six-month inspections mostly on vehicles used for five years,” Mr Ali said.

“You have seen the standard of vehicles, there is one general in­spection done prior to vehicles coming into Fiji and that nspec­tion is done in Japan.”

Mr Ali said 82 per cent of second-hand vehicles brought into the country were from Japan.

“Prior to it coming to Fiji, there is an importation certificate given plus the general inspection where they do severe inspection like smoke testing, automated testing, structural so that the best vehi­cles come in and you can see how vehicles are changing in terms of hybrid vehicles.”

He also said the fatality rate on our roads was alarming because it had increased compared to the same period last year.

“Before the fatality rate was less. Now it is 53 this year compared to 47 for the same period last year. It has alarmingly increased,” he said. “In the five-year plan or 10- year plan we can reduce it to zero fatalities on our roads.”

Mr Ali told stakeholders that road safety was everyone’s re­sponsibility and from LTA’s as­sessments they had found that the problem with most drivers was their behaviour and attitude.

“From our assessments, the real­ity of causes of accidents mostly are speeding, bad driver behav­iour, dangerous driving, alcohol.”

Edited by Percy Kean

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