How on earth did the papers come to that conclusion? The European Commission and MOT testing.

September 11th, 2012 § 0 comments

Meddling Brussels bureaucrats want to make modified and most classic cars illegal under radical reforms which would affect millions of British drivers.
The European Commission has proposed a shake-up of the MOT which could cost thousands of jobs and cripple the industry that deals with modifying cars.
Under its plans, all vehicles would have to remain identical to the specification they were in when they left the factory – which would mean classic cars could not even be updated with safer equipment.
The proposed new rules would mean any modifications – from different windscreen wipers to newer brake lights – would mean the car would automatically fail its MOT test.

says the Daily Mail.

Cars with any kind of modification could fail an MoT if new EU rules get the green light from member states, a motoring group is warning.

The Association of Car Enthusiasts (ACE) says even aftermarket wheels or stereos would bring a fail, and mean cars would have to undergo costly, time-consuming vehicle approval testing before they could be considered roadworthy.

The Auto Express tells us.

This is outragous. How dare those meddling Eurocrats tell us what we do with our motors?

This is what the European Commission actually says though…

Reports in the press that the European Commission has proposed to make modifications to cars illegal, or to ban classic cars unless they are unchanged since manufacture are entirely wrong.

The Commission’s proposals would not, if agreed by the Member States and the European Parliament, make any difference to the current situation regarding MOT testing in the UK except to make most classic cars more than 30 years old exempt from testing if they are not used day-to-day on the roads.

All other cars would remain subject to roadworthiness testing, just as they are now. Whether or not they have been modified is not of itself relevant: what counts is whether they are safe and that is what is assessed by MOT tests in the UK and by the equivalent tests elsewhere.

So feel free to modify, update and upgade away, petrolheads. But if they’re not planning on banning modifications what are they doing with MOTs?

What the proposals will do is require all Member States to bring their road worthiness tests up to a certain level of rigour, already applied in the UK : for example, motorbikes will need to be tested regularly everywhere, as they are already in the UK. This will make driving safer for UK drivers at home and abroad.

Read that again. Go on.

Yes, they want to bring the European standard for roadworthyness up to the level the UK already apply. It won’t affect us because it is our standard they want to emulate across the other EU countries.

A bit of sanity from Europe that the papers could use to blow our own trumpet and the papers get it wrong in the most spectacular style, with plenty of quotes from the government and motoring organisations, but nothing from the European Commission.

Instead of being proud that we have the most stringent safety testing for vehicles, the papers create an opportunity from nowhere to stir things up again.

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