A petition by the Riteve inspection company for a huge 157% price hike in mandatory vehicle inspections in January has raised outcries of rage and pain from taxi owners and motorcyclists.

The reaction from comments on social media ranges from “exorbitant” to “outrageous,” among some less restrained comments. Motorcyclists and taxi owners will undoubtedly express their displeasure in more physical ways.

The Riteve petition was made on Nov. 9, asking that the rate watchdog agency ARESEP grant the company 25,530 colones for the 2013 inspection of pickups and cars where the 2012 rate was 9,930.

The amount to inspect a motorcycle would shoot from this year’s 6,541 colones to 16,810. Taxi and bus owners will be nicked double because they must submit to inspections twice annually — and bus owners would have to pay 33,520 colones each time, not the modest 13,076 of 2012.

But ARESEP and Vice Minister of transport Rodrigo Rivera both admit they do not know what Riteve’s costs are and have no criteria about what a fair price would be.

Riteve itself underscored this dilemma when it said in a press release that it has not had a rate adjustment since 2004. “No application (for a price adjustment) has borne fruit during the past two Administrations because the government never published a methodology to calculate vehicle inspection rates,” read the communique.

Nor has a Riteve offer for a “Plan B” hike of 127% done anything to clear up the matter. It just means that Riteve is pressuring the government to take action it has put off for years.

As has been the case in the past two years, the Administration tossed Information Minister Francisco Chacon in front of the runaway train of outraged public opinion. He observed soothingly on Twitter that “just because Riteve has asked for this hike doesn’t mean it will go forward or that ARESEP will authorize it.”

The application for the rate rise could not have come at a worse time for Riteve. Shortly after they applied for the hike, the national insurance company INS announced a sharp rise in premiums for compulsory motorcycle insurance.

This brought hundreds of cyclists out into the streets several times in protests that blocked traffic. This latest news will not lower their blood pressure. Moreover, taxi drivers also are adept to this tactic.

Unless ARESEP acts quickly to defuse the situation, the country should brace itself for more protests.

Source: Fijatevos.com