There has been lots of chatter on the internet over the past day as everyone shares their thoughts on Malaysia’s decision to do away with road tax stickers and move to a digital road tax system.
A lot is due to difficulty accessing the system – it seems JPJ’s systems are overloaded at the moment because everyone is trying to get in all at once, but if you already have a road tax sticker it shouldn’t affect you for now, perhaps you can try again later when the hype has died down a bit.
The other part that has got everyone is talking is the use of an app to display the digital road tax, and what happens if you don’t have a functioning phone with you.
This was actually already addressed in the press conference yesterday, but as many missed we thought perhaps we should bring it up again.
Enforcement officers will be checking whether you have a valid road tax or not by using your car’s number plate, keyed into an app on their own device.
This means you don’t have to have a functioning phone on you to display the digital road tax. No need to make sure your phone has battery, or a data package. You don’t even need to keep a print-out of the digital road tax in your glovebox.
And there’s no issue if the car is registered to someone else’s name, you don’t need the road tax of every car you drive to appear in your app because you simply don’t need the app.
The onus is on the enforcement to produce proof that you do not have a valid road tax. We don’t have to provide proof that we have a valid road tax.
The road tax just appears in your app so you can keep track if you have a valid road tax or not. Otherwise you might forget when your expiry date is.
If you have more questions, you can check out the FAQ posted by the minister below.
