The Independent Garage Association is continuing its fight to protect the current MOT testing regime.
The IGA is staunchly against any change from the existing system of testing. It believes extending the time to first test, and the interevals between, would pose a grave risk to road safety. Government studies have shown the move to 4-2-2 could result in hundreds more road deaths each year.
While hard opposition work against a shift from 3-1-1 continues behind the scenes, IGA Director Stuart James says the launch of a consultation will allow for more sturctured opposition to proposals.
The long promised consultation is now expected to be launched in February. The IGA suspects the option of switching from 3-1-1 to 4-2-1 might be the government’s prefered option, but this would still be unacceptable to the IGA and wider industry.
Many other trade bodies echo the fears of the IGA and oppose the move from 3-1-1 testing. The IAAF is looking to collect MOT ‘horror stories’ from its members, such as the bald tyre sent to us by Chris Meredith of ABP Motorsport, and is encouraging all to sign up to its e-petition here.
We sent in the picture used above of a customers S-Max presented for MOT. Just imagine the consequences if this tyre had been used any longer – especially a whole year!
We recently conducted a survey of our last 100 MOT customers asking if they would support continuing with annual MOT tests over the proposed bi-annual tests and even with the annual MOT cost an amazing 92% said they would prefer annual tests (and its associated costs) against the bi-annual tests. The main reasons given were the peace of mind with annual safety checks and the fact that so much could go wrong over a 2-year period.
4-2-2 would be a disaster and everyone in the trade and 92% of motorists (based on our survey) know it.
Chris Meredith
ABP Motorsport
CAT Garage of the year 2010 & 2011