Road safety campaigners join forces to oppose "insane" plan to switch to two-year MOT regime

So having your car tested once a year is a burden? My goodness!

The very act of learning to drive and getting a driving license is a massive burden. Why not scrap that instead?!

Sheesh...

The Germans and Frech might go for 3 2 2 and 4 2 2 but then according to the offiical accident stats their roads are less safe than ours - hence the the DfT's own estimate of 3000 more deaths and serious injuries if a change to the frequency of MoT testing was brought in.

So what those who want the chance are effectively saying is that at the moment we're outperforming the European average so instead of doing that let's settle for the average even at the cost of a more death and injury on the road.

As one of my jobs I work in a garage that uses an independent MOT testing station to do our MOTs so there is no financial link.

I have checked the MOT records for the last month and found the following;

47 MOTs with 10 failures.

Ages of vehicles from 1992 to 2008.

We had 8 vehicles from 2007/2008 6 of which failed which would indicate that 75% of newer vehicles fail MOTs; but these were all for light bulbs or number plates, so you can do anything with statistics.

The 1992 car, a BMW, passed without even an advisory, but then the owner spends £100's every year getting it pre-checked so it never fails.

Of the other four failures 3 were due to illegal tyres and one for suspension damage; but of those that passed more than 20 had advisories, mainly close to legal limit tyres, that will probably be ignored until next year when they become failures or the car pitches them off the road or into an accident.

We always try to persuade customers to get the safety related advisories resolved but there is no compulsion.

As someone who relies for part of his income on cars failing MOTs then moving to a two year test would be a problem, but if other countries can work with 2 year testing what makes our system/cars so different?

Perhaps MOT tests should again become the remit of an independent government agency breaking the link between tester and repairer so that garages can't scam customers and a 2 year retest, doing away with advisories, with a higher required standard for a Pass and an immediate Fail for safety related items like tyres, brakes, steering etc would be an alternative.

I suspect that if the Daily Mail had a headline saying "£70 motoring tax to pay for health and safety red tape" this debate might be heading in a different direction. Pro-Mote is basically a garage industry lobbying group using lots of madeup numbers. If the Germans think 3-2-2 works, and the French get by with 4-2-2, where's the data showing they have a higher proportion of accidents caused by unroadworthy vehicles? The change was abandoned last time (and will be again) because there are no votes in confronting an unholy alliance of safety organisations and the garage trade.
If you want to tackle a loopy licensing regime, let's do something about driving licences for life, and have driving tests every ten years.

Sign the petition!

http://www.pro-mote.org.uk/take_action/

I've been involved with the repair of motor vehicles for over 20 years now.

Yes, modern cars may seem more reliable than 20 or 30 years ago, but they aren't infallable. To raise the testing to bi anually will result in more vehicles being in a potentially unsafe condition.

I've seen on numerous occasions, people driving vehicles from one MOT to the next, without having any checks in between. Many of these people complained about odd squeaks etc from the car, but didn't bother to get it checked out. This could be something innocuous as dust in the braking system, or it could be something more serious such as worn or siezed components.

Ok, so the test only says that your vehicle passed on this particular day, the following your wheel may fall off for example. But at least by having the test, you are reducing the possibilities of there being faults in the vehicle. To increase the length of time between tests can only create more unsafe vehicles as people will inevitably think that their vehicle won't have any problems, or need any repair work for 2 years.

Things like regular MoT checks are one of the safeguards against bad drivers, cos their often just the sort of people likely to be driving a potentially dangerous car, it makes like just the bit more difficult for them - sure they can just drive without one, but if they're stopped the car is likely to be confiscated.

The point about the MoT is that it's all about ensuring the roadworthiness of the car in other words how likely it is to be a danger to other people, well some of the most vulnerable other people on the roads are cyclists.

You can moan about it Gazzaput but everything I've read suggests you are wrong and that new cars are just as likely to fail their MoTs as they ever were plus those figures for increased casualty rates aren't spin they are based on the DfT's own assessment - if anything they slightly downplay the potential impact.

Take your point about tightening the pass/fail limits though Gkam, but as soon as your tyres were worn beyond the limit you would be committing an offence so if you were stopped you'd be nicked plus I don't know if this happens in other parts of the country, but in these parts I've noticed the police going around looking at cars parked in residential streets - mainly clamping people with out of date tax discs, but while they're at it I bet they look for any other targets they can hit.

Anyway the whole logic of the exercise is flawed how does it make things better for motorists by filling the roads with cars with potentially dangerous faults who pose an increased risk to, er motorists?

Isn't bad driving far more of a problem to us cyclists than when an MOT is done? Bi-annual doesn't seem such a terrible idea, and as people have already mentioned, cars are built a lot better than they were 30 or 40 years ago.

I wonder how many bikes would pass an MOT? I have seen cyclists in London ride bikes that I would consider a deathtrap.

Not trying to provoke the debate but I don't think this idea is as "insane" as has been suggested. I realise that those of us reading road.cc probably keep out bikes in much better condition than casual cyclists (if I may generalise briefly).

I just had to scrap my old Saab because the rust worm had worried its way into one of the rear suspension points. had it not had a simple problem with the fuel injection management system and an MOT due anyway, I'd have been driving a car with a serious mechanical problem. That the MOT should be extended to a two year system is of concern and could've placed me and my family at risk, not to mention anyone else.

Current failure rate of 35% means that 1 out of every 3 cars driving past you as you ride your bike could have a potentially dangerous fault.

OK, I know that some MOT fails like "cracked light casing" or "chipped numberplate" are hardly life threatening but for most people an MOT is the only time their car gets any sort of service and any faults like tyres/brake wear gets picked up on.

I'd like to see MUCH stricter testing of cars, roadside checks, instant confiscation, the full works but that one isn't a political winner...

What a load tosh. What a spin saying death rates will increase.

As mentioned here MOT is a as good as the day the car is tested.

Most modern cars are far more robust then 10 years ago. Why do you think see 5+ warranties being given?

Bloody car industry seeing something that they see as an easy money maker going down the pan.

Twice I had to appeal a cars MOT failure due to the garage trying to pull fast ones (both Kwik Fit).

Get's my full support bi-annual MOT.

Just to state for the record, i'm NOT in favour of it changing, in fact i'd love to see 6 month MOT's if it were cheap enough for the normal car owner to afford

But the line "In turn, the number of road casualties would inevitably increase" gets me some what, because an MOT is not just a simple pass/fail at the moment, there are many things that can pass but are "borderline" for instance.....

Tires, the can be JUST on the legal tread limit and will pass an MOT, but you could drive 40 miles and them be under the limit, but not have them changed for 6 months

You wing mirror may be present at MOT and fall off as you leave the garage and unless stopped or reported, you may not replace it till the next MOT

Suspension could be working at MOT and your driving home and hit a large pot hole and it breaks, you could get away driving it around for a while

I could go into many more possibilities, but wont bore you with them, The reason i know about MOT's is between my close family they have several garage's with testing for MOT's

If anything was to be changed, i'd rather see a tightening of the pass and fail limit's, I just don't think its as black and white as the government nor the guys against it are trying to make out

About half way down i got bored

an MOT is only a piece of paper saying your car was in a road worthy state on the day it was tested, just because you have an MOT doesn't mean your car is still road worthy a month down the line

So i can see the arguement for not increasing it, but what i can't work out is how they can predict road deaths if its increased to bi-annual testing Like a new car doesn't have to have one for 3 years, does that still stand??