30th November 2018 | By Ray Tyler

Huge ‘Dangerous Defects’ Increase

Even though ‘Failure Rates’ have reduced.

In late September, The ‘Sun’ newspaper reported on findings from collected data from ‘prestigemotor-warehouse.co.uk’. The data they’d collected on failure rates was from 50 Testing Stations. It indicated that petrol vehicles’ fail rates increased by 12% and diesel vehicles’ by 24% since the changes since May.

The data was checked with the DVSA and in conclusion the official figures are… From the 20th May 2017 – 20th Aug 2017 the failure rate stood at 35.2%. Over the same period the following year – 20th May 2018 – 20th Aug 2018 the failure rate was 34.6%

This amounts to a slight fall over the same period last year. Evidently the data collected by ‘prestigemotor-warehouse’ was unrepresentative of the country as a whole.

The huge ‘Dangerous Defects’ increase amounted to 667,378 in just 3 months. which gives an estimated total of more than 2.5 million over a year. Before May 2018 the annual ‘Dangerous Defect’ failures was in excess of 700,000 per year.

Why The Increase?

This huge increase is due to such defects being specifically identified in the MOT manual. The assessment is no longer being a matter of a Tester’s personal judgment. This is important because in legal terms there is now a defined legal definition of ‘Dangerous Defects’. This removes any grey area. Motorists caught driving a vehicle with an MOT failure with a dangerous defect will now find themselves in trouble on two counts. Firstly they will be fined for having no MOT. Secondly, for using a dangerous vehicle on the road, which is a more serious offence.

 

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