Land Transport Amendment Act 2009

[bravo 35]

Thanks to Heath for pointing this out to me. I usually get all the updates from Land Transport, but somewhere along the line I missed this one.

The Land Transport Amendment Bill No. 4 went through it's final reading and was passed into legislation in late June. It comes into force in December this year.

Search www.legislation.govt.nz for details.

"Highlights"

Drug driving will now be subject to roadside testing. Failure of the roadside test will give the Police powers of arrest, and you will be required to undergo a blood/urine test. Failure will result in a drug-driving charge carrying the same penalties as drink-driving.

Use of prescription drugs with a current prescription issued by a qualified doctor will constitute a valid defence.

There are changes to vehicle registration laws. Most of the changes relate to privacy in regard to release of vehicle owners details, and to the better recording of owners details so that owners can be tracked down for fines more readily.

But the change that will get you all talking involves registration plates.

The first and most exciting change is that Personalised Plates are now no longer the only company that will be able to issue personalised plates. The new s259 in Part 17 of the act changes the previous law (Section 9 of the Transport (Vehicle and Driver Registration and Licensing) Act 1986) to now allow

"(1) The Registrar may, after consulting with the Minister, enter into a contract to authorise a person to sell or otherwise dispose of the exclusive right to 1 or more letters or numbers, or a combination of both, allocated in accordance with regulations made under this Part for use on personalised plates.

“(2) Nothing in subsection (1) limits the number of contracts that may be in force under this section at any given time (whether in respect of the same or different letters or numbers or combinations of both)."

At this stage there are not any other companies to my knowledge with contracts, and any that do start up will likely have prices not too dissimilar to P-Plates, however it would probably stop the ever increasing price ladder.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that the new laws clarify the outlaw of german or (facsimile) plates and give the police the power to seize and destroy your german plates on the roadside.

So its a bit of a mixed bag really.

Discuss if you want.

[DRTDVL 0]

I'm going to poke a person i know with a big stick, he was originally talking about setting up competition to personalised plates but was blocked...

I'll let him know and see what he can do...

[OLLIE 26]

Do I have any investors?

am thinking i'll start a new business ... named something like "f**k personalised plates they are c**ts"

the gear can't be that expensive to set up right?

[DRTDVL 0]

the gear can't be that expensive to set up right?

Or talking to Remake about sub-contracting the work

[Jamez 2147483647]

why cant you set up a company then just import german plates or do they have to be the same font that platesNZ use? maybe germanplates.com could do a special run for NZ if there was enough orders.

hmmmmmm

edit- Do plates.co.nz even make the plates, or once an order is made do they submit a request LTNZ?

Edited August 12, 2009 by Jamez

[westy 614]

Use of prescription drugs with a current prescription issued by a qualified doctor will constitute a valid defence.

This is always an interesting clause.

Surely if your unfit to drive, your unfit to drive.

[DRTDVL 0]

why cant you set up a company then just import german plates or do they have to be the same font that platesNZ use? maybe germanplates.com could do a special run for NZ if there was enough orders.

hmmmmmm

edit- Do plates.co.nz even make the plates, or once an order is made do they submit a request LTNZ?

There is only one place allowed to make the plates, but Plates was previously the only company allowed to offer a personalized service.

The service option has been openned to competetion, but i would be supprised as to allow open manufacturing.