MOT alert for owners
Govt is considering crackdown Plan aims to improve car safety
Avoid recall work and your car is facing a failure
MOTORISTS who fail to keep up with manufacturer safety recalls could face automatic MOT fails under new Government plans to improve vehicle safety in the UK.
In its response to the Transport Select Committee’s report on the outcome of the Vauxhall Zafira fires, the Government agreed that more can be done to ensure drivers keep up with vital safety repairs.
The Government has already established a new Enforcement Directorate within the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) to give it greater oversight on recall work, and said it is investigating automatic MOT fails for cars with outstanding safety repairs.
That follows criticism by the committee about the number of drivers who failed to have their vehicle repaired. During the Zafira recall, Vauxhall noted more than 55,000 owners hadn’t had the fix done, despite receiving up to seven letters from the firm.
A previous Auto Express probe found more than a million potentially dangerous cars are still on UK roads, because less than half of the top 10 vehicle recalls in the UK since 2012 have been completed.
Figures obtained from the DVSA revealed just 47.7 per cent of the 2.2 million vehicles recalled since 2012 have been fixed, with more than a million cars still with airbag and steering faults or at risk of catching fire. Some campaigns, such as a recent BMW airbag recall affecting 227,849 cars, had a success rate of just 1.5 per cent when we investigated back in April.
In response to the low success of recalls, the Government said: “The DVSA is in talks with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and the insurance industry to identify opportunities for prompting safety recalls. The DVSA is also working with the Department for Transport to investigate the possibility of automatic fails, at MOT stage, for the severest unremediated effects.”
MP Lilian Greenwood, who chairs the Transport Committee, said: “I am pleased that the Government has listened to, and is acting upon, the recommendations made by the committee in the last parliament.
“The public needs to be confident that their safety comes first,” the MP added.
“Less than half of the top 10 vehicle recalls in the UK since 2012 have been completed”