Owners of Honda, Subaru and Mazda vehicles involved in the airbag switch, Takata, are urged to do so or risk being blacklisted.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the government has asked the vehicle companies concerned to send a final reminder to the car owners within two weeks.

"If they still ignore the warning letter, the Road Transport Department (RTD) will send a notice (to the owners) to be called to give an explanation or risk being blacklisted,” he told a media conference in Putrajaya today.

Loke said a total of 408,551 reminders had been been sent to all the vehicle owners concerned involving a cost of almost RM1 million since last June 26.

“But so far only 70,853 vehicles or about 17 percent have been sent to the manufacturers’ workshop and completed the airbag switch,” he said.

In the case of other vehicle manufacturers including BMW, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Toyota, which still failed to get sufficient airbag stock, Loke said his ministry had given them up to two months to do so.

“They made excuses such as transport problems, including in getting stock from Japan but they expect all stocks to arrive by end of November," he said.

On the motorcycle taxi service, Dego Ride, he said the government had decided the business would not allowed to be run in Malaysia due to safety reasons in view of high accident cases involving motorcycles.

- Bernama