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.
BBC…
Newly qualified young drivers should be banned from night-time motoring and carrying passengers of a similar age, Cardiff University researchers say.
They said such “graduated driver licensing” for those aged 17-24 could save more than 200 lives and result in 1,700 fewer serious injuries each year.
What an absolute cunt of an idea.
A someone in the article suggests, what about young people that work nights? People are also being encouraged to lift share, but kids at college wouldn’t be allowed to.
Surely it would be better to go along the same lines as has happened with motorcycles and restrict what vehicles new/young drivers can drive. Not that that will help, I gather during the local car of choice for the local joy riders when it was big all those years ago was the Metro. So power is not really the issue.
In a side bar on the BBCs’ story is a comment from a father whose daughter was killed in an accident with an 18 year old driver. Surprisingly, it isn’t about not letting people drive until they’re fortyfive or only letting young drivers loose in pedal cars, well most of the quote at least…
They should abolish the driving test completely.
These children are not being taught how to drive at all, they are being taught how to pass a test.
Instead, there should be a driving log – similar to aircraft – where learners have to log 200 hours with an experienced motorist.
They should drive at night, in the sunshine, in rain, snow, ice, on the motorway – under instruction at all time.
What an excellent idea. At the moment you if you learn through the summer the first time you experience adverse conditions or night driving is going to be on you’re on own. You can’t experience motorway driving whilst you’re a learner, and I’ll bet most people after their test don’t bother to book one more lesson to be taught how to drive on a motorway properly.
What’s needed, and is more practical, is better tuition for new drivers and harder penalties for people that fuck up through recklessness. Everybody, not just the young.
The best comment I have seen about the recent calor gas cylinder-in-a-car-bomb attempts was this, from a motoring website, Honest John:
Subject: What Iritates You the Most?
Caravans, let’s not forget them.
Maybe the current vogue for inappropriate use of Calor gas cylinders may see them banned and the caravanning industry crumble to dust as a result. Every cloud…..
We’ve all heard this before from disgruntled motorists, but a Mr Bryan Edwards has made this astonishing claim.
It is astonishing because Mr Edwards is of the Norfolk Camera Partnership.
D’oh!!
Speaking on BBC Look East yesterday evening, Bryan Edwards of the Norfolk Camera Partnership said: “What does concern me is of course if people put up fake cameras, motorists could be coming along at 70, think it is a camera, brake, or get distracted and that could actually cause a collision.”
While it is perfectly clear that Mr Edwards is referring to a fake speed camera, it’s obvious that a real speed camera is even more likely to cause dangerous distraction and panic responses from drivers.
Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: “It’s long overdue that ALL the speed camera side effects were acknowledged and investigated. Everyone knows that there are serious side effects that can cause crashes, but I must say it is unusual to hear such an admission from a camera boss. At Safe Speed we’re even more worried about subtle and insidious side effects that are tending to reduce driver quality.”
“If it wasn’t for massive ‘spin’ and vested interests we would have scrapped speed cameras years ago.”
“Speed camera are simply a distraction from real road safety. We won’t get road safety back on track until we scrap the lot.”
