MOT backlog in Northern Ireland...

[StephenFord]

My MOT expires in mid July, and just went online to book MOT. The soonest date I could get was end of September!! Who'd have thought that shutting MOT centers here down for 2 years would have such an effect 🤣 5 months is a long wait!

Apparently police here have been told to turn a blind eye as long as you have a date booked, and I was also told that insurance companies have stated the same. Though I'll try my very best not to crash just in case!!

[unofix]

Now would seem a very good time to change to doing MOT's every 2 years, or is that just using to much common sense ?

[iantt]

While the majority of mot test centres in  mainland UK stayed open as usual except for a month or so for some garages.  I can get an mot booked for pretty much next day. 

[StephenFord]

13 minutes ago, iantt said:

While the majority of mot test centres in  mainland UK stayed open as usual...

You see, you have proper 'private' businesses running them whose livelihood depends on them. Here, they are government run, and hence the public purse paid their wages whilst they all stayed at home watching NetFlix LOL Then they demanded that it was far too dangerous to return to work as unknowingly, cars carried Covid! 😅 It's a wonder they didn't try and argue to work from home 🤣

[TomsFocus]

2 yearly MOT's would be an awful idea over here.  Majority of people can't be trusted to check their own bulbs and wipers, let alone tyres and brakes!  

 

[StephenFord]

1 hour ago, TomsFocus said:

2 yearly MOT's would be an awful idea over here.  Majority of people can't be trusted to check their own bulbs and wipers, let alone tyres and brakes!  

 

Tom, less than 0.8% accidents are caused by mechanical failure, and even then over 80% of those are for tire issues. On balance, I admit I would be entirely in favour of 2 year intervals...

[TomsFocus]

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

Tom, less than 0.8% accidents are caused by mechanical failure, and even then over 80% of those are for tire issues. On balance, I admit I would be entirely in favour of 2 year intervals...

That figure suggests people can't be trusted with cars then, let alone maintaining them!!

[StephenFord]

47 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

That figure suggests people can't be trusted with cars then, let alone maintaining them!!

Well of course they can't be trusted!! 750,000 drivers a year run out of fuel despite a working fuel gauge and a big flashing red light on dash saying, 'I need fuel'!! (I won't even get into the issues there are ahead as they all run out of battery charge in the middle of a motorway) 🤣

[TomsFocus]

Just now, StephenFord said:

Well of course they can't!! 750,000 drivers a year run out of fuel despite a working fuel gauge and a big flashing red light on dash saying, 'I need fuel'!! (I won't even get into the issues there are ahead as they all run out of battery charge in the middle of a motorway 🤣

With any luck they'll run out of charge at the end of their road before making it onto the motorway and endangering everyone else.

 

[iantt]

5 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

That figure suggests people can't be trusted with cars then, let alone maintaining them!!

Can't trust the mot testers either. 😂😂.

https://movingon.blog.gov.uk/2022/05/12/mot-fraud-a-risk-to-road-safety/

[StephenFord]

2 minutes ago, iantt said:

Can't trust the mot testers either. 😂😂.

https://movingon.blog.gov.uk/2022/05/12/mot-fraud-a-risk-to-road-safety/

One advantage of having a 'government run MOT system in Northern Ireland - this kind of fraud just wouldn't happen. All test results are recorded in real time on a central computer, and there is no financial incentive involved in making up unnecessary repairs as all they do is testing... Still think it should be 2 yearly intervals though LOL

[iantt]

7 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

One advantage of having a 'government run MOT system in Northern Ireland - this kind of fraud just wouldn't happen. All test results are recorded in real time on a central computer, and there is no financial incentive involved in making up unnecessary repairs as all they do is testing... Still think it should be 2 yearly intervals though LOL

That article wasn't about unnecessary repairs but mot certs being issued without vehicles even being at test station and other issues. That abuse can occur at gov run station as well. Certs are issued in real-time too here. 

[StephenFord]

4 minutes ago, iantt said:

That article wasn't about unnecessary repairs but mot certs being issued without vehicles even being at test station and other issues. That abuse can occur at gov run station as well. Certs are issued in real-time too here. 

So, how can a cert be issued without the appropriate test results for an individual vehicle being assigned to them? (yes, I just added the bit about repairs for fun LOL)

[iantt]

I used to work with some dodgy mot testers back in around 2001-2003. That was when it was a book of certs. Won't go into detail but I left then ( cough cough) someone informed the authorities about the dodgy goings on. 

Some of the testers got banned and garage lost it's licence to test for 5 years. Oops. 

[iantt]

4 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

So, how can a cert be issued without the appropriate test results for an individual vehicle being assigned to them? (yes, I just added the bit about repairs for fun LOL)

Easy. So someone wants a cert. The tester logs the details of the car reg no, last 6 digits of chassis. The test starts . Wait 45 mins, input some fictious brake test results.enter milage provided . Park any car up to emmisions tester and print with the reg no of the absent car. Bingo. Here's your cert ( not that you need to print out cert anymore unless customer wants it. ) 

[iantt]

Some daft mot testers were doing them from home on days off. But that's been stamped out by IP address monitoring aparrenty. 

[StephenFord]

1 minute ago, iantt said:

Easy. So someone wants a cert. The tester logs the details of the car reg no, last 6 digits of chassis. The test starts . Wait 45 mins, input some fictious brake test results.enter milage provided . Park any car up to emmisions tester and print with the reg no of the absent car. Bingo. Here's your cert ( not that you need to print out cert anymore unless customer wants it. ) 

I think the other 6 to 8 guys in the test center may notice that someone is sitting in the office issuing fictional certs LOL 🤣

[iantt]

19 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

I think the other 6 to 8 guys in the test center may notice that someone is sitting in the office issuing fictional certs LOL 🤣

Do it on your phone. 

[iantt]

I only do 1 mot a month just to stay a tester. It's a training test so I'm checked to see if I'm doing it right. Should be after being a tester for 20+ yrs. I would quite happily stop being a tester. No point really now where I work. 

 

[TomsFocus]

I must see at least one person a week asking on social media for a 'friendly tester' or a 'decat pass' etc.  (Insta story so not public and disappears after 24hrs.)

Always been in two minds about it though...  The people asking are usually car people who would know if something was dangerous.  They're trying to avoid emissions or noise limits, rather than drive with 'dangerous' faults.  But laws are laws at the end of the day.

[StephenFord]

15 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

I must see at least one person a week asking on social media for a 'friendly tester' or a 'decat pass' etc.  (Insta story so not public and disappears after 24hrs.)

 

That's why I was curious on how fraudulent certs were issued. Here, all the machines for testing are hooked up to the computer that generates the cert, so if the emissions fail, they can't be overridden, the computer just enters them on the test results for that car. Like the rolling road that tests the brakes, the results are entered directly onto the computer etc etc

[iantt]

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

That's why I was curious on how fraudulent certs were issued. Here, all the machines for testing are hooked up to the computer that generates the cert, so if the emissions fail, they can't be overridden, the computer just enters them on the test results for that car. Like the rolling road that tests the brakes, the results are entered directly onto the computer etc etc

Yeah, all new equipment / replacement equipment should be connected to the mot system. So Less and less chance as the years go by of dodgy certs with equipment failures / buying new. 

[ashmicro]

I'm in NI. My MOT is on 13th June, with the current one expiring on 12th June. I booked my MoT in March because I knew the current situation.

As with all things Northern Ireland Civil service, the advice is unclear at best, so folks think you can't make a booking until there are 30 days or less remaining before your current cert expires.

You can't book the test itself for a date more than one month before the current cert expires, but you can  make the booking up to 6 months before. So I logged on on 07.03 and was lucky enough to get a test date at Larne for 13.06.

[StephenFord]

8 minutes ago, ashmicro said:

You can't book the test itself for a date more than one month before the current cert expires, but you can  make the booking up to 6 months before.

I'm confused, what is the difference between booking the 'test', and a 'booking'??

[unofix]

3 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

I'm confused, what is the difference between booking the 'test', and a 'booking'??

Your confused !!!!!

I'm totally bamboozled to say the least. It may be different in NI, but here in England you can book your car in and get it MOT'd at anytime.

My daughter has just had her car MOT'd despite there still being over two months left on the current one, but since she is selling the car she wanted to be able to advertise it with a full 12 months certificate.