Chris Saul's Blog

Saturday June 21, 2008

Old cars banned

The UAE will no longer allow cars over 20 years old on the roads, with cars over 15 being disallowed shortly, according to this article.

The article says that classic cars will still be allowed, providing they meet safety and pollution standards. I wonder how the process of deeming a car 'classic' will work. One man's classic is another man's junk.

I can understand the desire to want to reduce pollution and ensure safety standards are met, but I need to educate myself to understand how those things are related simply to the age of a car. If a car meets the necessary standards, I would have thought its age would be irrelevant.

I wonder too how this will affect car prices. My Jeep is 7 years old and definitely has another few good years ahead of it. If I can't re-register it when it's 15 years old it'll have to be sold - doubtless at way below its true market price - to a dealer who'll ship it off somewhere where it can still be used. Equally, if I were to sell it now, I'd expect the price to be less than it would have been prior to this announcement. Any buyer knows that the car's lifetime has been severely curtailed.

It'll be interesting to see how this new initiative proceeds.