Pafos Press 20 November 2024
Serious concern was caused by the issue of Takata airbags, which appear to be responsible for at least one fatality in Cyprus, while they are also being tested for another fatality and a serious injury to a driver.
In recent days, pages have also been making the rounds on the internet, through which a car owner can check if his vehicle has the airbags in question.
According to the Minister of Transport, Communications and Works, Alexis Vafeadis, TOM has asked all manufacturers' distributors to share electronic links, through which citizens can easily find out if a recall is pending for their vehicle. The links will be posted on the TOM website. https://www.mcw.gov.cy/mcw/RTD/RTD.nsf/contact_en/contact_en
All manufacturers' distributors have also been notified of lists of all vehicles from the same manufacturer and asked to inform owners if any recalls are pending.
As he said, when a manufacturer's distributor informs TOM of the initiation of a recall and requests information from owners of affected vehicles to contact them, TOM will send an informative SMS to the owners of those vehicles.
At the same time, the TOM will issue a technical directive to the IKTEOs so that during the technical control the owner is informed about the process of updating his personal information, the time during which the distributor must complete a recall so that the control is more effective and finally, it will proceed with further publicizing the issue so that citizens can better understand the importance of the recalls.
Besides, Mr. Vefeadis said that the TOM is studying three amendments to the relevant legislation. This is about amending the Type Approval Law so that when registering or transferring a vehicle, both for new and imported vehicles, a certificate from the manufacturer's distributor that there are no pending recalls on the vehicle in question must be presented to the Department of Road Transport. This applies to all new and imported vehicles.
Also being considered is the amendment of the law on IKTEOs, so that it is prohibited to carry out a periodic technical inspection unless a certificate is provided by the manufacturer's distributor that there is no pending recall of the vehicle, as well as an amendment to the Type Approval Law for the immediate recall of the suitability of the vehicle in case there is a recall. For the latter, he explained that it can be applied to vehicles with European type approval, because in order to be applied to vehicles imported from third countries, the manufacturing companies need to send the information about the imported cars.
In the meantime, there is a corresponding law proposal by MPs Hatzigiannis, Nikos Sykas and Stavros Papadouris, which will be discussed in the parliamentary committee on Transport on Thursday and covers a possible ban on vehicle registration and a ban on issuing MOT certificates if a revocation is pending.
In statements after the session, Kyriakos Hatzigiannis, after talking about "public danger", added that the Minister proceeded to describe the procedures and bureaucracy "without anything concrete" and without taking any political decision on the matter, as he said.
"The government was absent due to a public danger. What is the difference between public danger and the explosion in Marie? And then a Minister would have to resign, or then with other cases where we had assassinations and there were resignations of Ministers," he said, adding that "the most worrying thing is that they don't realize the magnitude of the problem."
Asked if he requests the resignation of the Minister of Transport, Mr. Hatzigiannis said that it is a matter of a sense of responsibility and added: "One who manages a problem and is on the bench of the observer or the stand of the silent fans to postpone himself to take responsibility for a problem that has been diagnosed, we murdered people as a system and at this time tens of thousands of people are in danger.
For his part, AKEL Member of Parliament Kostas Kostas said that today the Minister of Transport "simply told us some measures that TOM should have taken since last year, from October 17, 2023 when we discussed the matter after the certification, unfortunately, of of the death of Kyriakos Oxinos and we had recommended as a Committee that a platform be created where the citizen could enter to find out from the frame number if he has a defective airbag".
It was also hurt by the fact that so far only 50% of import companies have sent information requested by letters to TOM. "And now they're trying to do a public awareness campaign after we lost a second person, a young girl, who was probably killed by a defective Takata airbag," he concluded.
Environmentalist MP Stavros Papadouris said the problem goes beyond the 12,000 European-spec cars identified through the Rapex system as there are another 18,000 cars imported used.
He said the problem could be dealt with more quickly by passing the bill to be debated in the Transport committee and passed by the urgent method, rather than through government bills which would take longer.
"With the approval of the Minister, we can pass it in a week. If the matter is urgent, we must have immediate reflexes and be able to respond immediately to the people," he said.
At the hearing, a citizen attended, who researched and found that his car had a defective Takata airbag with the manufacturer noting that the car must be immobilized until the airbag is replaced at the manufacturer's expense and added that when he went to Mitsubishi, the dealership in Cyprus, they kicked him out and told him to move to Japan.
At the same time, it was reported that the companies importing Toyota and Mazda cars in Cyprus charge €160 and €75 respectively for checking the imported cars to determine whether they have the problematic airbags.
