4-2-2 Decision delayed
For years the Government had little to do with the MOT – they left the civil servants at both the Department for Transport (DfT) in London, and at VOSA to get on with running the scheme.
Then suddenly last year with the Davidson report into deregulating legislation that exceeded EU minimum requirements, the MOT entered centre stage – the EU ‘MOT’ only requires the first after four years and then every other year, whereas ours is three years and then annually.
“Hey”, the political spin doctors thought, “here’s a route to popularity, let’s save motorists some money and get some votes…”. So at last year’s annual CBI dinner Gordon Brown announced a populist policy to cut red tape – starting with the MOT.
Suddenly Testing Stations’ survival and their staffs jobs were ‘on the chopping block’, awaiting execution.
There was to be a review arranged by the DfT for the spring. In the meantime Testing Stations were like turkeys waiting for Christmas. The spring came and went. A new date of mid-July came and went. Then it was to be the end of July, and then, suddenly the DfT announced that it wouldn’t be announced then, but something would be out in the Autumn, maybe September/October.
So what’s happened? Well, maybe the much vaunted review showed that with a less frequent MOT that people will die… not such a popular idea with motorists – is that why they’ve paused on the brink?
In MOT Testing magazine we’ve done some calculations and if they’re anything like the similar assessments the DfT must have made about the real value of the MOT in saving death and injury on the roads, then that could have made the new Minister think again.
But VTS operators should be under no illusions – not only would any decrease in the frequency of MOT Testing cause increased deaths and injuries on the roads, it would also be disastrous to the MOT industry – now is not the time to sit back and wait to see what happens – protests must be made in the strongest terms to the government through their Members of Parliament.
VOSA’s New ‘Traffic Light’ enforcement scheme
In the last edition of MOT Testing we had a close look at VOSA’s plans for interviewing every VTS owner/manager, combining these results with information from the computer and historical disciplinary data, and then ‘scoring’ every Testing Station a risk score. Once every VTS had been done, then they would put everybody into either green, amber or red for low, medium or high risk of doing ‘dodgy’ MOTs. If you get into the red, they’d be on your back all the time.
MOT Testing Magazine editor, Jim Punter didn’t like it because the interview took into account a lot of non-MOT issues like the condition of the toilets, general tidiness, how far customers travel for an MOT (if they come from afar they assume it’s because you do ‘easy’ Tests!) and a host of other issues completely unrelated to the process of MOT Testing.
He roundly condemns VOSA for that, and for not fully consulting with the trade first, and picking owners and AEs up on issues not within the original conditions for becoming a Testing Station in the first place.
VOSA suggested he reserve judgement until he had observed an interview arranged at his own Testing Stations. This has now happened and been fully reported in the current edition of MOT Testing.
If you own a VTS, or are involved in any way in Testing, it makes essential reading and gives tips on how to ‘get into the green’.
Since then others in the trade representing the views of Testing Stations have also expressed their reservations to VOSA – who have (noted also in the latest edition of MOT Testing) relented to some extent and ‘softened’ their approach – but not enough for Jim Punter!