Edis Felić: Taxi drivers are right – a five-year-old vehicle is not to be written off

I read an interesting public discussion about the age of taxis, which is regulated by the Regulation on special conditions for vehicles performing public road transport and transport for own needs. It states that a taxi must not be older than seven years, and from January 1, 2021, this limit is reduced to five years. The next amendment to the Regulation is expected to postpone this deadline by one year, probably due to the pandemic, but taxi drivers propose to extend the age limit of vehicles.

Many taxi drivers and associations participated in the discussion, and it seems to me that their demands are well-argued. Here are a few proposals. Some believe, including Radio taxi Zagreb (at least that is the nickname), that this amendment to the Regulation should be used to increase the age of vehicles to as much as twelve years instead of reducing it from seven to five years, provided that they meet technical and safety conditions confirmed by periodic inspections, and that within a period shorter than one year. They cite as a reason for this proposal that the average age of vehicles in Croatia is twelve years, so this should also be allowed for taxi drivers.​

This is not found anywhere in the world

Taxi drivers say that if the provision of five years remains in force, after the expiration of that limit they would have to invest in new vehicles, and some of them would not even pay off the old ones. Moreover, they claim that for most of them, especially those working on platforms like Uber and Bolt, the job is on the brink of profitability, and they could not earn enough to invest in a new vehicle. One of them says that the business ‘has decreased due to the pandemic that halted the arrival of tourists, and thus the already shaky earnings have decreased, and the possibility of buying a new vehicle is just a dream for most taxi drivers’.

This taxi driver asks the proposer of the amendments to the Regulation (Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure) to consider that ‘a vehicle older than five years is not an old vehicle if it is maintained and regularly taken for technical inspection. Do not allow,’ he continues, ‘the number of workers at the Employment Service to increase and thus seek state assistance for the unemployed when it can very easily be done by adopting these amendments to retain many jobs.’ Another taxi driver states that they witness ‘an increasing number of illegal work in passenger transport due to the law on the age of vehicles up to five years, which is not prescribed anywhere in the world’!

I understand the reasons presented by taxi drivers, but I fear that twelve years is still too much for their vehicles as they wear out much faster than those driven by non-taxi drivers (we drive them from home to work or on trips, much less than taxi drivers). I find the proposal of other participants in the public discussion better, who suggest that the age of vehicles be limited between seven and ten years, with the condition that after five years, the vehicle is taken for a technical inspection within less than a year. Many of them say that ten years would be best, but I think that a middle ground between seven and ten years should be sought, with, of course, mandatory periodic technical inspections.

An opportunity for the Ministry to help

Thus, the emphasis in establishing the conditions that vehicles performing taxi transport must meet, writes one of them, must be on ensuring technical and safety conditions (periodic inspection) and the age of the vehicle must not be limited to unreasonable deadlines. On the very day the new Lider is published, the public discussion on the amendments to the mentioned Regulation will close. The Ministry did not intend to change anything related to the age of vehicles, but only to postpone the implementation date of the five-year age limit by one year.

However, really, since the Regulation is being changed, why not consider the proposals of taxi drivers that I have conveyed and which I believe make sense? Namely, if they really want to help with the postponement of the implementation to five years of age, it would help them much more if they reasonably shift the age limit of vehicles. 

POST SCRIPTUM
As another important argument for the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure to accommodate taxi drivers, we should also mention that there are no age limits for buses, trams, and other forms of public passenger transport. In our cities, there are trams that are over forty years old and that normally carry passengers, and certainly buses that have long since passed their prime. Of course, the technical correctness of all these vehicles that do not have a time limit must be checked regularly, just as taxi drivers propose for their vehicles.

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