CADA takes a stand against the import of RHD vehicles
The issue of right-hand-drive (RHD) vehicles on Canada’s roads is one that has gained some attention in recent months. RHD refers to vehicles in which the driver sits on the right-hand side of the cockpit, as opposed to the traditional North American left-hand configuration we are all used to.
The Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) has been on the record for a number of years in opposition to the proliferation of RHD vehicles we’ve seen in Canada in the past 10 to 20 years, and has advocated for tighter rules at the federal level surrounding the importation of such cars.
The issues surrounding the importation of RHD vehicles involve not only safety concerns but also their impacts on our environment and economy.
In April of this year, the province of Quebec announced it would be stopping, once and for all, the registration of RHD vehicles on its roads. Prince Edward Island quickly followed suit. With those announcements, the issue has moved up the priority list in Ottawa, and CADA will work to make sure the government remains up-to-date on the problem.
Some background
The vast majority of the vehicles imported into Canada must comply with our motor vehicle safety regulations, for obvious reasons. They must also comply with strict environmental rules with regards to emissions and pollutants. However, that rule does not apply to vehicles that are 15 years of age or older. Originally enacted decades ago, this exception was meant to allow for the continued importation of antique and collector cars that are seldom used on our roads.
Today, the reality has changed but the rules have not. A 15-year-old car is no longer an antique; it is a vehicle with many years of daily use left in it. We are fast approaching an average lifespan of some 300,000 km per passenger vehicle in Canada and that number is increasing every day. So the vast majority of vehicles imported under the 15-year exclusion rule are not antiques. They are old, dirty, inefficient and potentially unsafe vehicles that pose a risk to our country’s world-class safety and environmental standards.
A vehicle that is 15 years old emits as much as 30 times the pollutants of a new car. Currently, all the RHD vehicles imported into Canada are admitted under the 15-year rule for the exclusion of safety and environmental standards.
Extend the threshold
CADA’s position on this situation is simple: increase the threshold for the suspension of safety and environmental rules from 15 to 25 years. This would strike the appropriate balance between the protection of the interests of collectors and the preservation of safety standards on our roads. It would also serve to align our regulations with those of the United States and so halt the proliferation of these vehicles across our borders.
Most of these cars come from Japan, where vehicles are driven on the left-hand side of the road and where there are very strong incentives for the retirement of older vehicles. Australia, another RHD country, has recently increased its own threshold for the suspension of regulations on imported vehicles from 25 to 30 years of age. In the United States, the threshold is 25 years.
Canada, then, is a laggard on this issue with regards to its key trading partners in the Asia-Pacific region. As a result, we’ve become a refuge of sorts for thousands of older vehicles that flood out of Japan and other countries every year.
It makes no sense
Logically, it makes no sense for the federal government to invest in one program (Retire Your Ride) whose goal is to help get old cars off the road, while at the same time preserving a loophole that opens our borders to thousands of those very cars every year. It is a case of the government’s left hand being unaware of the actions of its right hand.
With two provinces having acknowledged the danger associated with the proliferation of RHD vehicles in Canada, it is time for Ottawa to modernize its own regulations and address the problem nationally. As with greenhouse gas emissions, we can not afford to see the establishment of 10 different sets of rules for RHD cars in Canada. As the guardian of our economic space, this responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the federal government. CADA is not trying to outmuscle antique enthusiasts. They should be allowed to continue importing collectors into the country.
But a right-hand-drive 1995 cargo van is a collector to no one.
