Dangerous failures - held to ransom?

[t-tony]

Was given a car to test this afternoon which was tested this morning in Hamstead (London). N/S/R tyre failed on lump on sidewall etc.

He then drove the car 150 miles (ish) back to Lincoln where I tested the car and failed it on the same tyre and then it had 2 new rear tyres at £535. .
3.0 Porker Panamera. Kiddy seats in the back too.

Tony.

 

[Dalek]

And we share the roads with them!!

 

[Redline]

Clearly expecting a country bumpkin tester to miss the problem. Instead he got you

 

[t-tony]

Clearly expecting a country bumpkin tester to miss the problem. Instead he got you

No, he is from up here Ian and we could get the tyres for the same day 295/35x20Y.

Tony.

 

[Stevo7682]

The annoying thing about this tale is the fact that technically speaking he drove the 150 miles with probably no insurance as his car had failed an mot and the fail will overrule any time left on old certificate same as dangerous defects people are perfectly happy to just drive their cars away even though they are committing a criminal offence by doing so.
See this sort of thing every day people either don't care about the consequences or are totally oblivious to them .

 

[Redline]

Don’t understand why the second test though. I guess it would be a full test as it wasn’t the same test station so it didn’t matter it was before the tyres were changed. Something else could have come up.

We’re they RFTs Tony?
If so I bet the owner thought he’d chance driving it banking he’d make it most of the way back at least without understanding he was driving without an MoT and hence no insurance. People comply with the law until it’s inconvenient!

 

[t-tony]

He couldn't get tyres yesterday in London Ian.

Tony.

 

[Redline]

He couldn't get tyres yesterday in London Ian.

Tony.

Hear that but I find it incredibly hard to believe. You can get anything you want 24/7 in London. The place never sleeps.

 

[t-tony]

Maybe he didn't have the time to wait down there or needed to be back up here for whatever reason. Who knows.
My point was all the scare mongering before the new rules came in that testing stations would be able to hold people to ransom over repairs.

Tony.

 

[Redline]

Maybe he didn't have the time to wait down there or needed to be back up here for whatever reason. Who knows.
My point was all the scare mongering before the new rules came in that testing stations would be able to hold people to ransom over repairs.

Tony.

Oh - I see what you're saying. Indeed! Always was and still is the driver's responsibility to obey the laws, not the testing station.
There are some places that only do testing as they don't have the capability or resources to do repairs.

I suspect that the driver wasn't aware that if he had been pinged on a police ANPR he would or could have been pulled up for no valid MoT. It's all but real time now.

 

[t-tony]

Oh - I see what you're saying. Indeed! Always was and still is the driver's responsibility to obey the laws, not the testing station.
There are some places that only do testing as they don't have the capability or resources to do repairs.

I suspect that the driver wasn't aware that if he had been pinged on a police ANPR he would or could have been pulled up for no valid MoT. It's all but real time now.

It is just that, and until or if the Police find time to "bother" with this nothing will change.

Tony.

 

[the Nefyn cat]

He may have been picked up on a camera, just takes a few days for the letter to get to his address. Lets hope so, eh?

 

[t-tony]

Would make me smile Mick.

Tony.

 

[Pingu]

Oh - I see what you're saying. Indeed! Always was and still is the driver's responsibility to obey the laws, not the testing station.
There are some places that only do testing as they don't have the capability or resources to do repairs.

I suspect that the driver wasn't aware that if he had been pinged on a police ANPR he would or could have been pulled up for no valid MoT. It's all but real time now.

I've been told that the ANPR database doesn't delete the old MOT, it just updates the new data.

As far as the ANPR database is concerned, the car had an MOT (unless the old one had expired).

@t-tony & @Stevo7682 - do you get the driver to sign something before they take away a dangerous vehicle?

 

[the Nefyn cat]

Surely the database would have been told almost immediately that the car had failed in the morning and then passed in the afternoon some considerable distance away. You'd get away with a short journey to a pre-booked MOT, but not London to Lincoln.

 

[Redline]

I've been told that the ANPR database doesn't delete the old MOT, it just updates the new data.

As far as the ANPR database is concerned, the car had an MOT (unless the old one had expired).

@t-tony & @Stevo7682 - do you get the driver to sign something before they take away a dangerous vehicle?

The MoT failure for 'Dangerous' items now supersedes any previous MoT is my understanding. It is immediate. Once failed, the car is unroadworthy and may not be driven. This is stated on the refusal certificate.

The tester's responsibility is on testing the car, not to police the drivers. While we would all benefit, it would put many testers in the firing line of 'dissatisfied' customers. Ignorance of the law is no excuse and all that.

The ANPR database may not (almost certainly I suspect) use the MoT database directly, but, I bet any MoT updates from testers are federated to the ANPR database quite quickly (probably within a few seconds). Even with 40m vehicles and 2 transactions for each, it works out at little more than ten updates/sec throughout the whole year (6 days/week, 7 hours/day). Peanuts compared to financial systems. Easily achievable.
Possible that multiple replication copies/data caches are held to reduce request times but still not a massive data issue.

 

[Pingu]

I am fully aware that the law states that driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition is against the law - and rightly so. Any driver that drives a vehicle that has a dangerous failure MOT notice does not even have the defence of ignorance (which is not a defence) - on the contrary, they have made a deliberate decision to drive a dangerous vehicle. If I were a magistrate, there isn't a book big enough that I wouldn't throw at them.

I was describing the likelihood of them being caught.

AFAIK, the ANPR database is not updated with MOT failures. It is only updated with MOT passes and their expiry dates. If the old MOT were still in date (note that I do not say valid), the ANPR would show the car as OK.

The only way to confirm if I am right or wrong would be to check the MOT status of a vehicle that has an unrepaired dangerous failure.

Use the simple online checker (https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-status). How long after the MOT failure before the MOT checker catches up with the actual MOT status of the car?

 

[Stevo7682]

Just caught up with this.
@Pingu in answer to your question about paperwork no we don't have the customer sign anything but do make them aware of the different legality of what the failed items are and the difference between a ' major ' and a ' dangerous ' defect.
( a dangerous defect says on paperwork ' do not drive until repaired ' )
(a major defect says ' repair immediately ' )
( a minor defect ( a pass) says ' repair as soon as possible ')
( an advisory says ' monitor and repair if required ' )
But at the end of the day I have no power to hold a vehicle no matter how bad it failed

As for the camera thing not sure but the second you print a pass or fail goes through all the police dvla insurance databases straight away ( I have had customers in reception taxing their car while I am doing an invoice on an mot I literally printed seconds beforehand) the public database is 3-5 days .
If a fail is issued and it's checked by an official body ( e.g. police) the fail will show over the existing pass ( as it was the last carried out )
If still valid mot and you get caught driving outwith the allowed criteria after a fail issued the offence isn't driving without an mot it is driving an unroadworthy vehicle ( as it has failed the basic roadworthy test which is the mot )

 

[Pingu]

@Stevo7682 I'm not sure if this has been answered somewhere else, but is the vehicle legal after the tyre has been replaced, or after the "dangerous" MOT has been passed. I'm assuming that the old MOT is still in date, but not valid due to the failure.

What is the crime, if any? After all, the vehicle is now safe, but it has not been declared safe by a competent person.

 

[Jack Ratt]

I take it that this is one of the cars that doesn't carry a spare wheel? If it does the driver should be flogged for not fitting it.