Island needs MOT, safety group told
Friday 15th April 2011, 11:30AM BST.
Guest speaker police traffic sergeant John Tostevin, left, at last night’s Living Streets annual meeting. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 1123926)
VEHICLE testing proved a hot topic at Living Streets’ annual meeting last evening.
Members of the pedestrian safety group discussed a wide range of subjects, including speeding, pavement surfing and abandoned cars, but the need for a legal requirement for vehicles to be roadworthy was the most prominent.
Guest speaker police traffic sergeant John Tostevin said that there was a serious need for an official test.
‘It’s a concern to me that when we do these stop checks there are a high proportion of vehicles with faults.’
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The speed limit is 35mph, an MOT or similar test would not be viable or suitable for this island. Living Streets should spend their time more wisely, possibly cancelling this ‘club’.
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They are right, I reckon at least half the cars on the island would fail an MOT today. How many cars and commercial vehicles do you see that are clearly polluting, have broken tail lights, one headlight or are just plain falling to bits? And thats just the obvious faults, how about their breaks or steering? The idea that the police somehow magically maintain high standards of roadworthiness is absolute rubbish. I’ve never been stopped for a vehicle check, in fact we hardly ever see a police officer at all in our part of the island. The only downside is that the garages will charge absurd and unwarranted amounts for the testing and all resulting work unless the States control their profiteering.
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It’s expensive enough for motorists without the need for MOTs.
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No, we don’t need an MOT test which is yet another layer of bureaucracy
However, the existing Vehicle Defect Rectification Scheme could do with being used far more often
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Why would anyone not agree with an MOT? By its very nature it tests for things which would be illegal therefore if your car is legal you have nothing to worry about except for a small annual fee which you would recoup by adding value to your car.In addition how can the island play lip service to wanting to be green when the largest polluting sector ie motor vehicles require no emmisions checks. Please lets get an MOT check asap and make our roads safe.
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New cars first MOT after 3 years,then at 2 yearly intervals.Many cars on the Island have faultly lights,steering,brakes,sharp bodywork damage,and the oil leaked around the Island that runs into the drains,makes the roads slippery especially after a dry spell.Yes,the MOT is in the interests of motorists and other road users!A car in poor mechanical condition is like a pistol with the safety catch off!
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Beanjar
50%? what rubbish.
But hey lets have MOT`s just because they got them in the UK right? because there`s far fewer accidents over there even in % terms.
I`m sure the motor traders wont support this :)
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Of course MOT tests should be bought in. There should also be compulsory tests for those local drivers of a certain age group still on our roads who have never taken a test, since it was not at the time of their “learning” to drive, a requirement.
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I’m with Mr G and pyer on this. A full blown UK style MOT is OTT for a tiny island with a top speed limit of 35mph. However, I would like to see vehicle emissions tests because what really bugs me as a cyclist and scooter rider is the belching of awful clouds of pollution from badly maintained vehicles, especially commercial vehicles. As pyer says, the Vehicle Defect Rectification Scheme, properly applied, can take care of the rest.
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The VDRS requires a huge amount of Police time to check very few vehicles, surely we want our Police time to be spent as efficiently as possible. An Mot certificate can be issued as per the insurance disc and checked easily. The island speed limits are irrelevant bald tyres, poor brakes no lights etc are dangerous at any speed. Remember this request is coming from the police themselves who see the condition of these vehicles. Again if you are legal what’s the problem?
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The UK MoT test is corrupt. If you Know someone who knows someone who works in a garage, your car will stay on the road. The fault must have occurred after we got their £60 MOT fee officer. Look at some of the wrecks using the roads next time you are in the UK.
The speed limit in the UK is officially 70 mph but the police prefer the speed limit to be 80 a dangerous speed for an un-road worthy car. So what about Guernsey a complete waste of time and money as you poodle around in cars which sometimes, on some roads, at certain times of the day do not get above 25 mph.
Like lemmings trying to chuck their money away rather than their life, introducing this will expand your traffic office, more taxpayers money sucked away in bureaucracy.
Dig deeper into your wallet or purse to pay a lot of smiling garage people and if there is a real problem which needs to be clearly proved by figures showing an increase in accidents caused by unroadworthy cars, then increase the unroady car fine.
The legislation is already in place. Simple and effective without the majority of good well maintained car owners, being penalised by a very small minority.
Davey West.
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I have always been surprised that Channel Island cars are permitted to drive off island without MOT certification. This may not be required for local use (though this is questionable) but is surely essential and should be compulsory for vehicles used in the UK or abroad. This test is after all there for the benefit of all road users in terms of safety. In regard to fees for MOT in the UK, these are fixed by the Government.
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TMR is right, Guernsey speed limits are irrelevant to this argument when an old crock can legally be doing 100mph on an autobahn by this time tomorrow. ‘Bent’ MOTs are not unheard of but forged certificates or phony tests would not be a significant problem over here if dealt with harshly by the courts. Those desperate to save £30 quid a year or so might think it a false economy if their child was injured by some old deathtrap which shoud not have been on the road in the first place. I stand by my estimate of 50% MOT failures now on the roads in Guernsey, it is virtually impossible to have a car over 3 years old that does not require some attention and many car owners are often too tight to adhere to service schedules. Why would the police lie about the number of unroadworthy vehicles they stop?
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Judging by some recent events, seems more like the drivers need an MOT not the vehicle!!
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Can anyone recollect any serious injuries or deaths that can be directly linked to a vehicle mechanical failure?
Most accidents are caused by poor driving and/or excessive speed, no amount of vehicle checks will change that fact.
I think its Living Streets that need an MOT!
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Although I don’t want to have to fork out even more cash for my car, I can see the positive arguments for it.
It will hopefully lead to a bit more security if you are buying a second-hand car from someone else over here, as the MOT would at least let you know that the car was roadworthy and should run properly. I stress the words ‘hopefully’ and ‘should’.
Not something I want to see, but I suppose it will be just another opinion chosen not to be heard when the time for a decision comes!
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I am starting to despair of this UK based regulation! If you look at most of the main States departments a lot of this is being brought about by people brought in from the UK on 5 year licences along with their ridiculous ideas, they are costing this island a lot of money as well as its identity.
Kevin; Couldn’t agree more.
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Again a complete lack of relevant evidence is provided to support the proposal!
How many accidents are there in Guernsey? How many of these are as a result of faults that would have been picked up on an MOT?
Until reliable evidence to the contrary is provided I can not believe that given the speed limits in Guernsey, the short journey lengths, etc that MOTs are going to improve safety one jot.
Sergeant Tostevin’s comment that in police checks a high proportion show faults is completely irrelevent:-
1. What is a high proportion?
2. The checks are designed to catch cars with faults so the police will stop older cars which look likely to have faults. ie its not reflective of cars in general.
3. Despite this and having no MOT Guernsey’s safety record is far better than the UK. Might it just be that there is little or no link between safety and whether or not MOT’s are performed (particularly in a small island where speeds are low).
MOT’s will simply drive up (pun intended) motoring costs in Guernsey without providing any safety benefit.
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Previous Police practice over the years has been for Officers on foot patrol and in cars to check vehicles whilst on patrol either visually, by walking past parked cars when tyre and bodywork offences are easily visible, or whilst being driven when noise and lighting infractions could be seen. Any offenders with no more than two separate offences on any one vehicle were then given the opportunity of using the vehicle defect rectification scheme (VDRS)and were given 2 weeks in which to get the problem sorted. If it wasn’t sorted the owner was summonsed to court and dealt with by the Magistrate. More than two separate offences on a single car resulted in a court appearance. Unfortunately some officers do not see this as their ‘job’ and ignore what should be the ‘bread and butter’ of their profession, this attitude is passed on to younger officers and so the problem roles on. No doubt someone would say that there are more important things for Police officers to do with their time nowadays, but I would suggest that younger officers benefit from this by interacting with the public, identify offences and aquire basic investigative skills that would stand them in good stead in the future. I often found (yes I am an ex-police officer) that stopping a vehicle for a minor offence often brought to light bigger offences, and can remember making arrests for drug and theft offences as a result of stopping someone for a lighting iinfraction. The secondary benefit is that all of the vehicles subject of this scheme are repaired or dumped. There is no need for an MOT in Guernsey, just a bit nmore proactive policing.
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I tend to broadly support the idea of some kind of test – perhaps every other year for vehicles over 5 years old, and every year for vehicles over 10 years old. I do agree with some posters above though that a full UK style MoT is not necessary on Guernsey.
However it should also be noted that an MoT will not be the panacea for all defective cars as all it does is certify that a vehicle was roadworthy on a particular date. That could literally change the very next day.
The need for “proactive policing” (to quote Bobby) would still be necessary even if such a scheme were implemented.
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“Proactive policing” has never been an adequate deterrant to people driving unroadworthy vehicles on Guernsey or to taking them off island. Now that the police are always ‘too busy’ to spend time on anything other than catching a few speeders, nothing will improve without MOTs or something similar.
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The MOT system in the UK is fundamentally flawed as in many cases it is used by the garage to drum up trade, not to mention the ones you can buy to say that your vehicle is road worthy when its not!
The MOT only declares that on that day someone thought that car was roadworthy.
The police do need to be out and about checking vehicles, as Bobby said, its a good learning curve for the new recruits and wasn’t the Yorkshire Ripper caught from a road check?
Where are the stats that show that the old bangers have caused all these accidents?
They dont exist.
Therefore you have to look at why you would want an MOT, I would say it was to generate money, so if you were going to do it then at least give the job to States Works, then the money would go into the States!!
Having one place who did the testing would mean that the results would be consistent. The test could highlight any faults and then the person could chose which garage to go to to get it fixed.
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i for one consider this another ‘TAX’ on the people. We will be charged for everything, that we have to do, this is not something that we should be following the UK for. France doesn’t have this so why shouldn’t we follow in their footsteps??
and about the tires we used to all ride horses 100 years ago – so why not go back and issue everyone with a horse that way we can have health checks – and there is no age or licence ristriction on horses – every one wins. look at Sark they love horses. and they have no cars. they seem to be on the ball don’t they. alderney have a train so why don’t we get a sytem of trams or monorails?
trams, monorails and horses – no MOT
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I disagree that the UK MOT system is significantly inadequate, it does the job of keeping standards of vehicle safety much higher than in Guernsey. The difference is obvious when you consider just the vast number of cars with illegal lights, the police may never see them but everybody else can.
Of course most accidents are not caused by faulty vehicles but how complete are the statistics? when an accident occurs everybody is more concerned with helping the injured and removing the wrecks than putting them through a vehicle check. What about hit and run cases, don’t you think those vehicles are probably illegal for one reason or another?
Taz, I think your idea of a States Department conducting MOT style checks is excellent, much better than being stung by our greedy garages. (Mine wants to charge me £140 for an oil and filter change, four times what it costs in the UK.) It would work so long as they don’t start taking bribes.
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I wonder how many accidents have been caused by faulty vehicles in Guernsey in the last few years? Bet there are hardly any.
Once again the Health and Safety gestapo are trying to force us to adopt measures we do not want or need.
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Use the word ‘health’ betwixt or between any issue and all opposition is nailed.
A bit like race, diversification, environment and climate – all completely unasailable by any rational or pragmatic thinking.
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I find the mention of “old bangers” in this quite interesting.
Car safety all comes down to effective maintenance. A 15 year old car which has been well maintained may well be more roadworthy than a 5 year old car which has had little spent on it.
MOT’s look at many aspects, including things like brake lines, tyre wear, seatbelts, sharp/damaged bodywork that could injure a pedestrian. Although these things may not directly cause an accident they may well contribute to the severity of one, even at upto 35mph (and be honest, we all know that this is exceeded by a large number of drivers).
Should they be introduced in Guernsey though? As with some previous posters, I’m not sure they would add a lot. Though it would be nice to see more than every other car with all its brake lights working!
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Beanjar, never driven in the UK then? Some of them are just rust on wheels, the MOT only makes a vehicle safe at that particular moment in time.
Police still have to do their job by checking for the general stuff – broken lights, smashed windscreens etc.
Owning a vehicle is expensive, if you can’t afford £140 learn how to change the oil and filter yourself, it’s easy.
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MOT’s are needed end of story.
I’ve driven vans from a few of the hire companies in Guernsey in France and the UK to find when I got there that they were death traps (unbalanced wheels, poor brakes, oil and water not topped up, ineffective handbrakes etc).
I’ve also been in cars and Rascals where I could see the road due to holes in the floor from corrosion!
And i’ve certainly seen many accidents because of badly maintained vehicles in Guernsey.
It would only cost fifty quid or so for the MOT. If it costs more to maintain the vehicle then fine so be it. If its too expensive for to have something safe for the road then that is also good as it will encourage people to cycle or walk, making us healthier (or maybe not if you are hit by a car with faulty brakes). This would also reduce congestion!
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I’d like to see a garage chaging £50 or so for anything, let alone an MOT. I haven’t had a bill for under £100 for years and years – and that is for some pretty minor jobs.
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“VEHICLE testing proved a hot topic at Living Streets’ annual meeting last evening.”
I bet it did. All 4 of them must’ve been frothing at the mouth.
Am I the only one starting to find these namby pamby “living streets” people quite irritating? By all means have your little “club”, but stop bothering the rest of us with it.
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GUERNSEYGAL – that would just be the test fee (probably about 45 minutes work). Any work required or parts would be extra.
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You can guarantee that if an mot test was introduced in Guernsey then the price for the test would be at least £150.
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Darren, complain to the company you’re hiring the vehicle from then. Just because they’re not in great condition doesn’t mean the whole island needs an MOT system.
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I can’t believe there are so many comments above who are in favour of bringing in yet another unnecessary level of bureaucracy into the Island. More staff at the Environment department to cope with all the paperwork. My last routine service cost around £250-00 so you certainly wouldn’t get an MOT for under £100.
I’m on the roads every day, I don’t see that many vehicles that have defects that warrant bring in an MOT. There will always be a % that will need looking at, but don’t look at using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
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More unnecessary interference from busy body pedestrians with nothing better to do than kick up a stink over something I can’t actually see to be a problem here. I would love to see statistics on causes of accidents locally, comparing driver error to mechanical faults to see if this MOT system should be imposed upon us.
If it can be proved to be a genuine issue and money well spent then I will support it but until then, call me cynical, but I see the MOT as more interference in my life from a government and the sort of nosey busy bodies that I simply cannot stand. It’s there to make money for somebody somewhere, not for our safety.
People say “If it saves one life it would be worth it” but in reality lives are weighed against cost or hassle I’m afraid, that’s the way it is. We could cut a few deaths every decade by reducing the speed limit to fifteen miles per hour everywhere but it would be seen as unacceptable hassle. The MOT is the same.
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