KUALA LUMPUR: A fee will soon be imposed on those seeking to have car window tints above the allowable limit, says Transport Minister Anthony Loke (pic).

He said this is part of the Road Transport (Amendment) Bill 2018, which he tabled in Parliament on Monday (Dec 10) and is expected to be passed and gazetted for implementation by January next year.

Currently, the law allows tints with at least 70% Visible Light Transmission (VLT) for the windscreen, 50% for front passenger windows and 30% for the rear passenger windows and rear windscreen.

"If you tint according to the standard, no approval is needed," he said.

He said not everyone who applies to have darker car window tints would get it.

"There is no automatic approval as they must be eligible to use the tint and apply for it and pay a fee," the Transport Minister said.

He said exemptions would be given to vehicle owners who need to use darker tints on their windows due to a medical condition.

He also said that a nominal fee would also be imposed on car manufacturers for Vehicle Type Approval (VTA).

"At present, there are a lot of procedures and inspections involved, but the government does not charge any fee.

"So we will now charge a nominal fee to cover administrative costs borne by the Road Transport Department (JPJ)," he said at a press conference in the Parliament building on Monday (Dec 10).

He assured that this would not cause any hike in car prices as the VTA is for models from car manufacturers, not individual cars.

Another amendment, Loke said, was to empower the JPJ to deregister abandoned cars, which is a problem in cities.

"At present, local councils are prevented from towing away the abandoned cars as they are still registered.

"So we want to simplify the deregistration system to allow local authorities to dispose of the abandoned vehicles," he said.

Loke said based on records from eight councils including Kuala Lumpur City Hall from 2014 to 2017, there are some 15,019 abandoned cars.

The amendments will also empower the JPJ to deregister cars which chassis numbers have been tampered with.

Loke also said that nine city councils would be empowered to set up uniformed traffic warden units under their jurisdiction once the amendments come into force.

The city councils, he said, were those in Ipoh, Alor Setar, Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam, Penang, Johor Baru, Melaka, Kuala Terengganu and Iskandar Puteri.

At present, he said only Kuala Lumpur City Hall and Putrajaya City Council are allowed to have traffic wardens.