MOT's on the way?

[Andy Onchan]

12 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Welcome to Jackson's....?

There you go again.... Mr Cynic  !

But I do agree that there's no such thing as coincidence!

[woolley]

4 hours ago, GreyWolf said:

Ralphie Peaky awakes, another one whose seems to have done nowt in government , election on horizon is there,  must get me mug shot in the media and papers in case everyone’s forgot me, at least Moorhouse try’s his best,  Peaky blunders picks the wrong subject as this is just a money making enterprise for the few hitting the pockets of the many on this rock who are just getting by. Okay for a wealthy dude like him he could claim for it on his expenses that us taxpayers pay for.  Just police the excessive speed and driving whilst on the phone (see that most days) look at tyres etc etc and if they find some really unsafe vehicles straight to the crusher for them.

It's one thing to get your name and picture out there but to attach it to a policy that will be as popular as an increase in income tax doesn't exactly scream out "sound judgment". This is not winning any votes for sure, except for a few in the motor trade.

[woolley]

6 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

This is obsfucation on the road safety debate. 

As posted earlier, 95% of collisions are down to driver error. 

MOTs have a negligible effect on the causation factors of RTC. The ‘Safer Vehicles’ element of Safe Systems, which is part of our national Road Safety Strategy (remember that?) focuses primarily on the crash worthiness of the vehicle and encourages drivers to buy safety ones. Whereas cars that are poorly maintained will ‘crash worse’ especially if their structure is compromised by corrosion, the impact on overall serious and fatal figures. 

I cannot ever recall attending a collision caused by someone having one headlamp not working. 

The focus, drive and effort needs to be on improving driver standards, and the fatal 4 of speed, drink driving, mobile phones and seatbelts, along with making our routes safer.

Collisions have fallen for the last two years, but I think this is in spite of anything done in the name of road safety to date. We’ve seen fluctuations in the past. We have seen some good work and shit weather during TT, which has helped, and Gary Roberts is giving strong signals that more pressure needs to be applied to improving safety during the Motorsport festival periods. 

Whether he overcomes the political intransigence that is ultimately costing lives, remains to be seen.

I take all of your points, although my nonconformist side does wonder whether making the vehicle safer gives drivers a sense of false security that puts themselves and others outside the safe cocoon at greater risk. You might be high off the ground in a crash survivable envelope with bull bars, but the poor bugger crossing the road is still vulnerable flesh and blood. Perhaps there is something to be said for the old steel spike in the centre of the steering that sits a couple of inches from the driver's adam's apple.

[Derek Flint]

6 hours ago, John Wright said:

Everywhere else in Europe has technical inspections. Vehicle safety and longevity is much improved  since the early 60’s. But just having technical inspections is an impetus to maintain to standard. It needn’t be annual, it needn’t start at 3 years old. 5 years old and every 2 thereafter would suffice.

@Derek Flint you down play by mentioning a single head light. Brakes can and do contribute, as does corrosion, or ineffective washer/wiper and then there is safety belt check and environmental checks. 

Im all in favour of regular, say 10 year, compulsory  road awareness education refresher training days, with both theoretical and practical elements, for licence renewal. 5 years after 65. Also compulsory after any motoring conviction attracting penalty points.

Im not in favour of the NI state run system of MOT which has silly bureaucratic rules, waiting times, and delays. 

You are absolutely right on all elements here, John. In fact, one particular impetus for IOM testing would be if the EU made it a condition of use on their roads. For those that drive in Europe, that lack of access for Manx registered vehicles could well be an issue. The other you mention - maintaining standards, is also valid, and may indeed psychologically contribute to an overall stepping up in attitudes and behaviours. But it remains that the contribution that mechanical defects make is very small in the overall measure of things, and there are bigger hitters we should be focussing on, for now at least. 

 

1 hour ago, woolley said:

I take all of your points, although my nonconformist side does wonder whether making the vehicle safer gives drivers a sense of false security that puts themselves and others outside the safe cocoon at greater risk. You might be high off the ground in a crash survivable envelope with bull bars, but the poor bugger crossing the road is still vulnerable flesh and blood. Perhaps there is something to be said for the old steel spike in the centre of the steering that sits a couple of inches from the driver's adam's apple.

Vehicles are now becoming too technically advanced. I had a Peugeot 3008 on hire last week. You could even receive and READ emails on the move! Other features included blind spot monitoring, proximity radar and lane departure correction. That is an awful lot of automated input, which can be distracting, as well as lulling you into a false sense of security that the vehicle has 'got this'. 

[doc.fixit]

8 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

This is obsfucation on the road safety debate. 

As posted earlier, 95% of collisions are down to driver error. 

MOTs have a negligible effect on the causation factors of RTC. The ‘Safer Vehicles’ element of Safe Systems, which is part of our national Road Safety Strategy (remember that?) focuses primarily on the crash worthiness of the vehicle and encourages drivers to buy safety ones. Whereas cars that are poorly maintained will ‘crash worse’ especially if their structure is compromised by corrosion, the impact on overall serious and fatal figures. 

I cannot ever recall attending a collision caused by someone having one headlamp not working. 

The focus, drive and effort needs to be on improving driver standards, and the fatal 4 of speed, drink driving, mobile phones and seatbelts, along with making our routes safer.

Collisions have fallen for the last two years, but I think this is in spite of anything done in the name of road safety to date. We’ve seen fluctuations in the past. We have seen some good work and shit weather during TT, which has helped, and Gary Roberts is giving strong signals that more pressure needs to be applied to improving safety during the Motorsport festival periods. 

Whether he overcomes the political intransigence that is ultimately costing lives, remains to be seen.

Absolutely spot on !! Most folk clamouring for an annual test are un-informed, ill-informed or profit motivated. I've argued enough about this subject so that' all I have to say and will not comment again.

[Max Power]

9 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

This is obsfucation on the road safety debate. 

As posted earlier, 95% of collisions are down to driver error. 

MOTs have a negligible effect on the causation factors of RTC. The ‘Safer Vehicles’ element of Safe Systems, which is part of our national Road Safety Strategy (remember that?) focuses primarily on the crash worthiness of the vehicle and encourages drivers to buy safety ones. Whereas cars that are poorly maintained will ‘crash worse’ especially if their structure is compromised by corrosion, the impact on overall serious and fatal figures. 

I cannot ever recall attending a collision caused by someone having one headlamp not working. 

The focus, drive and effort needs to be on improving driver standards, and the fatal 4 of speed, drink driving, mobile phones and seatbelts, along with making our routes safer.

Collisions have fallen for the last two years, but I think this is in spite of anything done in the name of road safety to date. We’ve seen fluctuations in the past. We have seen some good work and shit weather during TT, which has helped, and Gary Roberts is giving strong signals that more pressure needs to be applied to improving safety during the Motorsport festival periods. 

Whether he overcomes the political intransigence that is ultimately costing lives, remains to be seen.

I can recall an incident, which may have been fatal, where a vehicle with no lights on its offside collided with another around Laurel Bank area. The driver was across the white line and overtaking and the car coming the opposite way thought it was a motorcycle. 

I'd agree that most incidents are primarily caused by driver error but things like damaged windscreens, poorly set headlamps, poor quality tyres and brakes can greatly increase the possibility of error. Some people don't have their cars serviced at all, it's not easy to spot them with roadside checks. 

I also agree that driving standards are a primary cause. 

[Rog]

Over a period of time things wear.  Dampers lose their performance, bushes wear, tyres lose performance though still legal, corrosion takes place that could be tackled at first sight and so not spread, brakes lose effectiveness and can even become unbalanced when applied, flexible hoses progressively fail, brake lines can corrode, seat belts fray, in short a whole lot of things that a driver doesn't even notice but impair the performance of the car as an integral system.

The annual MOT tests for these things and by identifying them and replacing worn components results in a much safer vehicle that will perform very much better when faced with a hazard than one that has not been kept up to code.

[Annoymouse]

10 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

This is obsfucation on the road safety debate. 

As posted earlier, 95% of collisions are down to driver error. 

MOTs have a negligible effect on the causation factors of RTC. The ‘Safer Vehicles’ element of Safe Systems, which is part of our national Road Safety Strategy (remember that?) focuses primarily on the crash worthiness of the vehicle and encourages drivers to buy safety ones. Whereas cars that are poorly maintained will ‘crash worse’ especially if their structure is compromised by corrosion, the impact on overall serious and fatal figures. 

 

Would you like to see an MOT introduced or perhaps some sort of highway agency that could randomly stop and check any given vehicle, you appear to be anti MOT but i'd be surprised if you don't want to see more done.

People ignore air bag warning lights for example, has there been an accident were the air bags didn't deploy when they should have done? or seat belts not retracting correctly, is there an example of someone being thrown from a car even though their seat belt was clipped in?


 

 

[woolley]

2 hours ago, Max Power said:

I can recall an incident, which may have been fatal, where a vehicle with no lights on its offside collided with another around Laurel Bank area. The driver was across the white line and overtaking and the car coming the opposite way thought it was a motorcycle. 

I'd agree that most incidents are primarily caused by driver error but things like damaged windscreens, poorly set headlamps, poor quality tyres and brakes can greatly increase the possibility of error. Some people don't have their cars serviced at all, it's not easy to spot them with roadside checks. 

I also agree that driving standards are a primary cause. 

The incident you cite there. Whilst I do not condone in any way driving around with one headlight, bulbs do fail in use, and I have to wonder about the eyesight of the driver who took the car with no offside headlight to be a motorcycle. Very often in these debates "unlit" appears to be interchangeable with "invisible" and that is obviously not the case. Unless the one headlamp on the nearside was badly set and dazzling the oncoming driver, surely he should have been able to see that it was not a motorcycle by the light of his own vehicle headlamps?

As a fallback, when driving, never assume anything, and always drive defensively. I have done so ever since being violently rear ended one night in Central Manchester many years ago. Leave plenty of room around you and a pathway to escape where possible, and don't be distracted even when stationary. Think for the other person because they may not be thinking for themselves. Is that child on the pavement going to rush out into your path? Is that car approaching from the minor road actually going to give way? Does the idiot at the roundabout know what he's doing? Be aware of what is going on around you and what might happen next. The number of people who speed around blind bends with no chance of stopping if they encounter another vehicle, pedestrian, horse, etc. never ceases to amaze me. They might as well be playing Russian roulette.

The defensive driving mindset would be a thousandfold more effective than vehicle testing.

[WTF]

11 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

 

I cannot ever recall attending a collision caused by someone having one headlamp not working. 

 

i know of one, many years ago in glen helen, maybe late 80's early 90's.  a person was driving an old mini IIRC  and the drivers side headlight and side light were out,  a motorcyclist coming the other way seeing only one light in the gutter may have  assumed it was a moped and proceeded to cut the corner quite severely,  it ended in  a head on crash with a dead motorcyclist and the car  driver losing an eye along with other injuries.       

 

but i agree,  MOT's are a  money making scheme and don't really help with road safety to the extent  that we get told to justify them.  street lights out of town would be a bigger help.

 

 

EDIT::   seems Max beat to it,  i think it was the black dub not laurel bank, i knew the car driver.

[Derek Flint]

3 hours ago, Rog said:

Over a period of time things wear.  Dampers lose their performance, bushes wear, tyres lose performance though still legal, corrosion takes place that could be tackled at first sight and so not spread, brakes lose effectiveness and can even become unbalanced when applied, flexible hoses progressively fail, brake lines can corrode, seat belts fray, in short a whole lot of things that a driver doesn't even notice but impair the performance of the car as an integral system.

The annual MOT tests for these things and by identifying them and replacing worn components results in a much safer vehicle that will perform very much better when faced with a hazard than one that has not been kept up to code.

Indeed all this is true. But they are a very small part of the cause and effect of collisions. We have bigger things to address first.

2 hours ago, Annoymouse said:

Would you like to see an MOT introduced or perhaps some sort of highway agency that could randomly stop and check any given vehicle, you appear to be anti MOT but i'd be surprised if you don't want to see more done.

People ignore air bag warning lights for example, has there been an accident were the air bags didn't deploy when they should have done? or seat belts not retracting correctly, is there an example of someone being thrown from a car even though their seat belt was clipped in?


 

 

I recall one fatality where someone was ejected from a vehicle despite wearing his seatbelt. But the velocity and forces involved rendered the safety systems, and a three point strap, utterly futile. The vehicle was in excellent condition prior to the collision.

Vehicle testing has its place. It is essential in vehicles that are used for making money, or carrying public passengers as there is always a temptation to cut corners in the name of profits. However, as I have opined earlier, we have much more pressing things to address first. 

 

[Rog]

32 minutes ago, Derek Flint said:

Indeed all this is true. But they are a very small part of the cause and effect of collisions. We have bigger things to address first.

I recall one fatality where someone was ejected from a vehicle despite wearing his seatbelt. But the velocity and forces involved rendered the safety systems, and a three point strap, utterly futile. The vehicle was in excellent condition prior to the collision.

Vehicle testing has its place. It is essential in vehicles that are used for making money, or carrying public passengers as there is always a temptation to cut corners in the name of profits. However, as I have opined earlier, we have much more pressing things to address first. 

 

Thing is that clapped out shocks (for example) may not be the primary cause of a crash but may well limit the ability of a driver to deal with an incident.  Same with brakes imbalanced brakes will also adversely affect the way that a vehicle acts when applied.  It's about the progressive deterioration of a vehicles performance that just doesn't get noticed.

[Non-Believer]

I hope there'll be an equivalent testing regime for pushbikes....

[Rog]

4 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

I hope there'll be an equivalent testing regime for pushbikes....

Not a bad idea. Compulsory third party insurance that required an annual test would be a possible way to implement it.  After all bikes have unique serial numbers stamped on the frame.

[Chris C]

22 hours ago, Rog said:

My local garage undertakes a free MOT with every full service or replacement set of premium tyres.its not at all unusual.

But it costs the garage to file the MOT with the authorities. I used to live down the road from a garage that offered MOT's for around £30, they had a huge sign advertising it on their gable wall.At the time it cost the garage around £40 to register the MOT with whoever it was they registered it with.

So either they were so committed to road safety they were happy to run their business at a loss, or (as happened every time I took my car there for an MOT) they found something expensive wrong with it). Funnily enough when I got wise to them and started taking my car to a place that charged around £65 for an MOT, the same (now older) car didn't have a single fail for the next 5 years.