Editor,

RE: "Even cars have a lifespan” (The New Times, June 14).

It is entirely untrue that old cars aren’t allowed on the roads in developed countries. Every day in Canada we see cars that are more than 40 years old.

Dorian Banks

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True. And some, as rare vintages, will even fetch many times the price of the most expensive contemporary cars. But these are salon cars, not trucks, buses or other commercial vehicles. Nor, as collectors’ items, do you find them on the road every day being used as common work-horses.

If old vehicles are to be allowed on the road rather than junked and turned into scrap, then they must undergo stringent mechanical and pollution controls very regularly and at shorter intervals than newer versions.

Mwene Kalinda