Yearly, motorists whose vehicles are at least three years old would receive a Notice of Inspection letter from the Land Transport Authority - about two months before the expiry of the last inspection's validity - instructing them to have their vehicles inspected by a certain date.

As vehicle inspection centres also have a counter for the payment of road taxes, motorists would normally wait for the road-tax disc to arrive before sending their vehicles for inspection, so as to save time from settling both on different occasions.

However, road-tax discs are normally received by motorists at a much later date than the Notice of Inspection letter, making those who want to settle this yearly task earlier wait till then.

Why can't the road-tax disc - which is in paper form and issued yearly or half-yearly - be like the HDB season parking disc, which is electronic and issued just once, and can be updated electronically upon payment?

Furthermore, in this electronic age, wouldn't the vehicle's licence plate number be sufficient to screen for non-payment of road taxes by enforcement officers, should the need arise?

And is the displaying of the paper road-tax disc really necessary, given that I have yet to be stopped for a check on the validity of my vehicle's road tax in my almost 50 years as a motorist?

Seah Kian Chong