QCOSTARICA – The Ministry of the Environment (Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía – MINAE) plans to get tough on motorcycle noise pollution and gas emissions.
enviroment minister, Edgar Gutiérrez, said a bill is being prepared with the participation of distributors in the country, similar to the the plan to remove older vehicles. The plan is to also ban mountain motorcycles in the cities.
“Costa Rica is one of the few countries that in the metropolitan centers people use mountain motorcycles, as if the city were a mountain. It’s something that cannot be explained (…), ” said Gutiérrez.
The minister added that there is not yet a definite start date for the proposal, explaining that he has already met with executives of Susuki and Yamaha importers in Costa Rica, to discuss the initiative.
Last week, the MINAE, together with the Banco de Costa Rica (BCR), the Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS) and the Asociación de Importadores de Vehículos y Maquinaria (AIVEMA), presented the PAVE program, that aims to encourage owners of older vehicles to trade them in for newer, less polluting ones.