Brits Are Freaking Out Over Vehicle Inspections And They Need To Calm The Hell Down

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“Car industry bodies hit back at ‘dangerous’ biennial MOT plan” reads Autocar’s article about the U.K.’s proposal to reduce living expenses by making vehicle safety inspections (MOTs) mandatory every two years instead of one. “Scrapping annual MOT could lead to 2.9million dangerous cars on UK roads” writes the Daily Express. “Scrapping annual MOT tests would cost lives and wouldn’t even save motorists money, experts say” iNews writes. These are just three of many articles critical of the biennial inspection proposal, and I find them to be rather laughable and borderline fearmongering. Here’s why.

I mention this topic after seeing talented-car-journalist Jonny Smith’s tweet a few weeks ago:

“Worth risking for national road safety?” Smith asks, clearly dischuffed at the proposal. Again, he isn’t alone. Even British motoring association “The AA” issued a statement ripping on the idea, with The Sunday Times reporting:

“Though well intended, moving the yearly £55 spend on an MOT to every two years could make costs worse for drivers with higher repair bills, make our roads more dangerous and would put jobs in the garage industry at risk,” said the organisation’s head of roads policy, Jack Cousens, who noted that a previous call for biannual MOTs was ditched after review.

“Only recently the government stepped away from switching the MOT to every two years on the grounds of road safety, while AA polling shows overwhelming support from drivers who like the security that an annual health check provides.

“The MOT now highlights major and dangerous defects too, showing how important it is to keep cars in a safe condition.”

That second paragraph saying drivers actually prefer annual MOTs is a bit bonkers to me. But so is this quote from the same article:

“This could be genuinely dangerous for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians and we would be seeing cars on the roads with serious defects. And when it comes to the cost of living, this proposal won’t help at all,” said Karen Rotberg, co-founder of BookMyGarage.

This all comes as Britain struggles with inflation and high energy bills — all of which have combined to lead U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ask his cabinet to “come with ‘innovative’ ideas to help ease the pressure on household finances which do not require government spending,” per Sky News. Apparently the Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, floated this idea of making the annual vehicle inspection biennial.

Anyway, unlike Smith and a bunch of British publications, I do not see this as a significant safety problem at all. In fact, to even suggest that it’s a major safety hazard is utterly laughable.

Much Ado About Nothing

Look, as many of you know, I live in Michigan, a state that has no safety inspection whatsoever. I’ve been critical of this overly-laissez-faire approach from a state that uses so much road salt; I’ve even called for a basic inspection that looks for rusted-out brake lines and bad ball joints, so I want to be clear that I’m not at all saying “Michigan doesn’t do it, so stop being babies.” Michigan’s approach is illogical.

With that said, even though I do think a basic inspection is a good idea, I know full well that there’s plenty of data out there showing that safety inspections aren’t really that effective.  For one, it’s not like cars are crashing left and right due to mechanical failures, with the U.S. Department of Transportation writing:

The critical reason, which is the last event in the crash causal chain, was assigned to the driver in 94 percent (±2.2%)† of the crashes. In about 2 percent (±0.7%) of the crashes, the critical reason was assigned to a vehicle component’s failure or degradation.

Two percent in the U.S.. That’s not a huge figure to begin with, but it’s still more than zero, I’ll grant that. Still, numerous studies have shown very little correlation between vehicle crash rates and inspection mandates, mentioning that the inspection programs tend to be poorly run, and that they yield very little measurable benefit to road safety.

Still, despite the small number of crashes resulting from mechanical failures, and despite the literature pointing to inspections not necessarily offering much relief in terms of component failure-caused incidents, I still believe in basic safety inspections on principle, especially after having seen numerous dangerous corrosion-related vehicular failures that could have easily been prevented.

The reason why I think the Brits complaining about biennial inspections taking the place of annual ones is so absurd has little to do with whether these inspections are actually just placebos in the first place. Let’s ignore the studies/data for a second, and just consider this: Germany, a country with the Autobahn network on which one can literally drive one’s car at 200 mph if the vehicle can go that fast, requires just one TÜV inspection every two years. Here, I’ve actually gone through that inspection myself with a van I bought for $600:

I YouTubed the British MOT test, and it looks remarkably similar to Germany’s TÜV test:

 

My point here is that there is absolutely no way in hell that Great Britain needs to inspect its cars twice as frequently as Germany does. I get it; there are some differences in the inspections, the roadways are maintained differently, and there are a bunch of other factors at play, but the typical U.K. motorist doesn’t even drive 7,500 miles a year. That’s less than the average German motorist, who — I’ll reiterate — drives literally as fast as they freaking want to. (And here in the lawless, poorly maintained roads of the U.S., we drive over 12,000 miles a year). Plus, a quick google search shows that there are more registered cars on the road in Germany than in the U.K.

So, to reiterate, Germany has more cars, they drive faster, and yet the nation has mandatory vehicle inspections every two years. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who says the cars on German roads are dangerous; as someone who’s gotten a junker through Germany’s TÜV, trust me when I say they are anything but. If anything, Germany’s inspection is too frequent.

Plus, from a technical side of things, what’s the real concern, here? As an engineer and experienced at-home mechanic, I have a good idea of what can make a car genuinely dangerous. Bad wheel bearings can do it, bad ball joints, rusty brake lines and suspension/structural components, wobbly tie rod ends, exhausts that rust off, old tires, compromised braking systems — these are the main worries. Pretty much anything that can prevent your car from steering, stopping, or remaining firmly suspended above its four wheels is what you’re most worried about. And the likelihood of these bits going from “in good shape” to “failed catastrophically” in the 15,000 miles the average motorist would be driving between appointments is extremely low. They might have worn out, but to fail catastrophically after being thoroughly and correctly assessed as “in good shape” just 15,000 miles prior (or 25,000 miles for the upper quartile of drivers) just doesn’t seem like a major worry. In my experience, things like wheel bearings will usually start to make some noise before gradually wearing out over a long time. Ball joints will become loose long before that ball shows any signs of wanting to pop out of a socket.

As long as the inspections are done properly with the mindset of “will this last two more years?” then I see no issue here.

[Editor’s Note: Certain mechanical and bodywork issues aren’t an immediate MOT failure, but instead are marked as advisory items and could fail inspection in a year or two’s time. Some of these advisories are a bit on the serious side, including slight play in wheel bearings and slight play in ball joints. Honestly, I’d be more concerned about advisories becoming dangerous within the span of two years than any perfectly good components. – TH]

What Does Our Resident Brit Think?

I asked Adrian Clarke, The Autopian’s resident non-secret car designer. I figured if I didn’t get at least some input from a Brit, I’d be eviscerated in the comments like I was back when I foolishly used the term “spastic” in my Jalopnik review of the then-new Wheeler Dealers series (turns out that’s a really bad word among British folks; I nearly caused an international incident, with Mike Brewer’s fans absolutely destroying me on Twitter — for the record, the term is often used to mean “overly energetic” here in the U.S.).

In fact, if you’ll pardon the brief aside, here’s a comment from Mike Brewer himself (I have no idea what he’s talking about re: stroke victim). Given that the article was so positive, I’m fairly sure he knew I wasn’t being horribly offensive in the middle of a nice blog (clearly it would have been out of place), but mentioned it to drum up drama — ultimately he got me more clicks, though not for reasons I’m proud of, obviously:

Anyway, back to Adrian, the man who will make this article immune to any criticism that could spark another international incident between the U.K. and the U.S.. I asked him about the MOT, and he broke it down: “It takes about 45 minutes, it’s a general roadworthiness test, they look at tyres, suspension for wear, visible structural corrosion, safety systems, emissions, lighting that sort of thing.”

“From what I understand the objections seem to be if you can’t afford to MOT your car yearly, you’ve got bigger financial problems,” he told me in a chat message. “Also all MOT records are now public and cover a vehicles mileage as well, so it’s a great way of tackling fraud if you’re looking to buy a second hand car” he continued.

“No it’s not cheap, but in the grand scheme of things that’s a pound a week,” he said, mentioning that it’s not hard to find shops that’ll do the inspection for under 40 pounds. “People would prefer a reduction in fuel duty as a cost of living reduction.”

When I asked him if he thought it was a danger to go to every two years, he responded: “To be honest it’s probably not, as cars are so much better now than they used to be, but there will always be those edge cases. It’s not like in the US where you see bald tyres and stuff.”
Two notes on that last statement: His point about cars being better today than in 1960 when MOTs started their annual tradition is a good one. Though vehicles travel faster now, they’re better built. Also, notice how Adrian spells “tires” incorrectly — proof he’s an actual Brit, which, again, I’m pointing out because I’m about to call Brits “babies” here in a few paragraphs, and I’m hoping that including someone from the U.K. will shield me from sparking another Twitter war. Clearly I’m still traumatized from the Brewer Incident Of 2017.
Adrian went on to say there are much better ways to reduce costs for families. “It’s typical conservative ‘look we did something’ that actually costs very little,” he said. “Lower gas taxes would be better.”

With All That Said, This Proposal Is Bullshit

Now, I want to make clear that, even though I think many of the Brits claiming that the proposal would lead to unsafe roads are being big babies, I do find this whole concept to be absolutely idiotic.

First off, if the whole premise behind annual inspections is that they do indeed exist for safety reasons (whether that bears itself out with data or not), then removing them to save motorists 55 pounds every couple of years makes little sense. If you’re going to claim to do something for safety reasons, you don’t stop doing it to save people a few bucks. The whole idea is silly.

It’s also worth discussing some of the points that YouTuber Twin-Cam (did he name his channel after the GM successor to the beloved Quad 4 dual overhead camshaft inline-four?) mentions in his video above. He talks about how some garages actually do MOT inspections for less than 55 pounds (sometimes 40 quid, like Adrian said) to get folks in the door; but if the inspection goes to every two years, they’ll almost certainly raise prices to the maximum 55 pound figure allowed by law. So that’ll cut into the perceived savings a bit. Twin-Cam also says shops will find ways to make money even if they see fewer vehicles in for MOTs — perhaps mechanics will be harsher, or they’ll raise their rates.

There’s a lot of good stuff in the video above; I think the young man did a great job with it, though he does make this statement: “The proposed change would be a disaster for road safety.”

No. No it will not. There is a very slim chance that it will make any discernible difference to roadway safety. And there is a zero percent chance that it will be a disaster. There’s more from iNews, who writes:

“The suggested law that MOT checks would be changed from annually to every two years will make our roads significantly less safe,” said Rebecca Needham, Rospa’s road safety manager in England.

In 2020 there were 29 fatal accidents and 345 serious injury accidents in which a vehicle defect was a contributing factor, Rospa figures show.

“We expect that this number would increase” if MOT tests became less frequent, Ms Needham said.

No Ms. Needham, I know you’re the Road Safety Manager for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa), but let’s be honest: There’s no way this proposal will make your roads “significantly less safe.” It’s just not going to happen. Please stop with this nonsense.

All of these people claiming that going from a ridiculously frequent inspection to an inspection as frequent as Germany’s golden standard, the TÜV inspection (which is meant to prepare cars for an Autobahn with no speed limit) is going to turn British roads into a bloodbath are full of shit. They’ve got a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome, having become so used to Daddy Government coddling them that they just no longer feel safe not having their vehicles looked over every year.

And that’s okay; peace of mind has value. But my dear Brits, stop whining about how this proposal is a safety risk; the reality is that you don’t need an annual inspection. I agree that the premise behind trying to use safety inspections as a way to save cash is dumb, but this isn’t a significant safety risk. Vehicle inspections are already controversial in their effectiveness; your annual MOT came about when people were driving shoddily-built Austin Minis and Hillman Imps and it’s no longer relevant today; Brits drive fewer than 7,500 miles a year; the strict Autobahn-loving Germans drive more and inspect their vehicles only once every two years; and honestly, your major suspension and steering bits aren’t likely to go from “good” to “holy shit this thing is a deathtrap” in 15,000 miles.

This is much ado about nothing. Relax.

99 thoughts on “Brits Are Freaking Out Over Vehicle Inspections And They Need To Calm The Hell Down

  1. In 1985 I was living in Tasmania and I bought the same model Hillman Imp II shown in the header photo, except mine was red with a white stripe . . . and it came with old tyres which were splitting on the sidewall much like this! When I picked it up I immediately drove to a tyre place to have them replaced with modern tyres.

    Impressive accuracy Mr Tracy!

  2. Have you met many British people, and compared their standards of maintenance with Germans? This is why they need more frequent inspections.

  3. As a Brit I am dead set against a bi-annual MOT test. They’re not expensive in the grand scheme of thinsg and when you look at a the MOT history of a car the amount of times they fail on things that should be obvious (bald tyres, defective lights) it’s scary to think they could have had an extra year on the road like that. Would it cause as much danger as the quotes are saying – unlikely. Would it make the roads less safe (even if only slightly) – most definitely.

    The MOT test needs to be more consistently applied though as several comments here have pointed out.

    As for your Mike Brewer faux pas – I think by lumping him in with spastics you’re being very unkind to people with real disabilities. He’s just a tw*t of the highest order who has no clue about anything as far as I can tell.

  4. Annual inspections seem like a huge waste of time. Every two, like most of Europe, or even three should be fine if done right. Except, possibly for vans.

    People doing many miles a year tend to have newer and better maintained cars, simply because it’ll cost them money and inconvenience to be stranded. With the exception of vans, which are driven to an inch of its life and racks up most of its miles four inches from the bumper of the car i front.

    But the real shocker in this story is: Mike Brewer has fans? Plural???

  5. Hi David,

    I agree with much of what you say, but I do want to mention a couple of things.

    You wrote “Two percent in the U.S.. That’s not a huge figure to begin with, but it’s still more than zero, I’ll grant that.” I found here: https://www.usacoverage.com/auto-insurance/how-many-driving-accidents-occur-each-year.html, that there are 5.25 million accidents yearly in the US. That’s an insurance company’s site, so they are selling something, but hopefully they aren’t just making that up. Two percent of 5.25 million is 105,000 accidents, which your are correct in saying is not zero. It’s a whole lot more than zero. That 2.5% also assumes that cars that have been in accidents are inspected afterwards and safety problems are identified as the cause of the accident, which seems unlikely.

    I don’t really drive in the UK very often but when I do I notice how much better the condition of their cars are than what you see on US roads. I think it would be good if the US, i.e. the various states, would require some sort of road worthiness inspections. As mentioned in your article it is not uncommon to see cars with bald tires on the road. That is easy to catch, and I’d wager that if someone is driving with something as obvious as bald tires that there are probably other not as evident safety problems happening on their vehicle. We have all seen people bouncing down the road because their dampers are shot, that cannot be safe either.

    Most people just don’t know, care, or think much about their car so long as it gets them where they are going. It is also easy to get used to a safety problem because, as you point out they often take time to develop. Regular inspections and required repairs could help mitigate that.

    I know that people with lower income are likely to be more heavily impacted by inspections and repairs. I don’t know how to address that, but maybe there could be some sort of tax break or assistance program to help offset the cost, or maybe the US could actually invest in public transportation. I know I’m dreaming, but I do think that inspections are a good idea if implemented correctly.

  6. Its probably a good a idea to push the first test to 4 years instead of 3 years (might have changed since I moved stateside 20 years ago), then test on year 4, 6 , 8, 10, 12 & 14. After a car reaches 15 years old it might need inspecting more often. once it gets to 25 years old, stop testing as these will be rare any probably owned by enthusiasts.

  7. I would think with the lingering death of the British car industry that quality and safety of cars on their roads would be increasing every year.

  8. I live in a state that does a biennial safety inspection (except for on new cars, those can 5 years before it’s due) and this doesn’t seem like a big deal to me, if the MOT inspection itself isnt changing -eg, it’s still going to be just as rigorous as ever, just slightly less often.

    In my case, it isn’t the frequency – every two years is fine. It’s done by the state government, at only 4 locations in the whole state, they’re open bankers hours, and you have to stay with your vehicle the whole time. There’s always a long line, and it’s a hassle, can take half the day or more, I really don’t want to do that every year for every car if I don’t have to. But, I would be OK with making our inspections a lot tougher – not TUV level tough, but more than they are now. Of course, if they did that, the state would probably have to start outsourcing to licensed private shops, because the way they’re set up now, no way could they handle more than the cursory check they already do

    1. THAT SOUNDS LIKE fucking DELAWARE…

      I live in this fucking state! How can there be two people… from one site.. in the same state!?!

      1. You got it, only state I’ve ever lived in where I’ve been nearly wrecked on the highway by a rogue wheel falling off a Nissan Altima, because that’s something that should happen

        1. ROGUE wheel off an Altima….

          Lemme guess, it was a TITAN of its world that started out as a PATHFINDER but fe…. ZZZZzzzzzz (asleep). When the wheel landed, it was staring at the SKYLINE.

  9. Please listen…the less the better.
    Let me elaborate, I grew up in a system that put a lot of hardship in car ownership through biannual TUeV inspections, I experienced life without while living abroad and let me tell you it is all well intended but ultimately just made-up.
    I have never in any jurisdiction been involved in an accident where the reason was a technical failure, I have been in two types of behaviour induced, a) aggressive driving, e.g. taking the right of way from others b) absent mindedness. a) was actually easier to deal with, as there is some plan and direction and you can decide if you really want to be involved, b) can be so overwhelming, it’s unpredictable.
    I now live in Ontario, where you have an initial safety when registering it in your name (but never again, even if decades go by) and as someone pointed out, the emission check was so pointless (test a thousand to find one being off) it finally got scrapped. However you do have to call the electrical safety Ass. for any changes you make to the electrical system in your house, even if you move the light switch an inch. Again…well meant…but the country with the TUeV trusts you with the electrical, you can change as much as you like on your own account. If any of the negative assumptions would be real, you should find a desastrous death toll for electrocuted folk in the one jurisdiction and the same sad story for unsafe cars leaving a trail devastation. None of it! But why you ask? My wild assumption is, because humans in general are quite interested in driving a safe car or live in a place with dependable electrical systems, pure self-interest 😉
    Believe in the sense of people, assume the best and everywhere the authorities can take your vehicle out of circulation if it doesn’t meet standards (e.g. profile depth).

  10. Personally, I don’t find an annual MOT isn’t that much of a hardship, even with some of the shitboxes I’ve owned, £55 is less than a full tank of petrol these days. I don’t think it won’t make much difference to most cars under ten years old either.
    Honestly, this is a typical Boris ‘dead cat’, ie, his strategy of distracting everyone from whatever his current crisis is by throwing out something new to focus attention on. Realistically, this is going to do absolutely jack shit to help the people who are really struggling.

    Fun* fact: MoT stands for ‘Ministry of Transport’, except we’ve not had such an organisation for years, instead it’s now called the ‘Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’, which is part of the ‘Department of Transport’. I guess no one can be bothered to change the name given how ingrained into culture it is.

    * not much fun really.

  11. Having lived in the US as long as my driving life in the UK I think I’m qualified to say that David’s take is the correct one. The MOT isn’t conducted the same way throughout the UK, and in some areas (NI) it’s done by government testing centers rather than garages, it’s a pain to schedule an appointment, and you can get failed for the most arbitrary BS.

    The byproduct of the MOT, and probably the TUV too, is an endless supply of cheap shitboxes for those mechanically inclined enough to deal with cars owners don’t want to pump any more money into to get them to pass the test.

  12. I am for a reasonable inspection process. Meaning if the car is held together with duct tape and prayers then it should not pass.

    I have no issue with bald tires, rust holes you can put your legs through, brakes that won’t stop the car, etc,

    The nitpicky stuff is the worst. I had one car fail not because the headlight was out of alignment, but it could not be set due to a $0.30 clip not there or one of the 7 bulbs in the third brake light is out.

    Meanwhile the car in the next bay is belching out blue smoke, ratting like a 1000 paint cans in a shaker, has a rust hole I can reach into the trunk without opening the lid, and a windshield that is spiderwebs to the point of being useless. They pasted “because they can’t afford to fix it”. I felt like I penalized because I had the money to fix my car.

    /rant mode off.

  13. I think that things are so much different now in 2022 than they were even in 2002. In the mid 00’s, a 15 year old car was built at the end of the malaise era and likely rotted out with suspension ready to fall off from rust perforation. Now, a 15 year old car was made in 2007 and potentially still under some sort of warranty. In PA they started doing emissions testing every during yearly inspection back in the 90’s, but at this point it’s just silly. They charge you actual money to simply plug in an OBD reader and make sure the checks are all there. It made more sense when they had to put it on rollers and do a sniffer test. Hell, if my car pops a CEL at this point, it pings back to the manufacturer who pings the app on my phone to tell me that the car needs service and what it needs.

    In short, cars have gotten so good in the past 20 years that they don’t need to be inspected every single year like they used to. I live in PA and its just a pain in the ass and I think cars should be exempt from yearly inspections for the first 3-5 years after manufacture. The ONLY thing I can see getting caught in that time is tires and MAYBE… MAYBE brakes since my Clubman JCW seems to like new front pads every 15-20K miles.

  14. Fellow Michigander here. Love this site – great content! Back in the day (early 90’s) we used to have mandatory yearly emissions testing.

    Story 1: I owned an 84 Delta 88 and my parents owned an 85 Ciera (both Oldsmobiles for you youngsters). The 85 was a bone stock 3800 v6 that ran great and passed emissions every time. The 84 had a mildly built 71 455 with a Rochester four barrel and the only things it couldn’t pass were gas stations and the emissions tests. (It did pass a turbo daytona at 135mph on I-696, but that’s another story). I may or may not have borrowed dad’s car and used my 84’s registration, hoping the tech was too lazy to check the VIN. My car passed with flying colors that year.

    Story 2: Same 84 Delta 88, now with a 260 and a two-barrel. I ran multiple emissions tests and worked really hard to make it pass. (I was adjusting the timing and fuel mixture to lean it out in hopes it would be good enough to get by.) After 3 tests, I was close to passing, but not close enough. It also ran pretty rough and rather than tuning it back up, I found a place offering a “low emissions tune up”… I figured since I had to pay either way, I’d save time and have the shop tune the car and get it to pass the test.

    I stopped by the place and wanted to wait. The guy said, “we are super busy, come back this evening.” I returned much later and found my car in the exact same spot that I had left it and still running like absolute crap. Amazingly, the car passed the test with flying colors – almost zero pollutants. These guys must have been geniuses! I took it home, set the timing and adjusted the carb and I was back in business for another year.

    I did not shed any tears when Michigan stopped the testing, though I agree some kind of regular safety inspection would be a good idea. Reminds me of the time a State Trooper did one of those on the side of the road for me… broke college kid, speeding on 4 bald tires, loud exhaust… good times.

  15. Here in Portugal MOTs have started to get unreasonably strict in recent years. I’ve had cars that got failed for stuff like a rip in the driver’s seat or a tiny crack in a fog headlight. The problem with dealing with this every year isn’t the part where you go there and fork over about €40 for the inspection, it’s making sure that it passes, and that can get much more expensive. I’ve had to do about €200 in minor repairs for my Renault 4 to pass inspection back in January, and in July I’ll have to get my 98 Polo inspected, and I already know I have a worn-out driver’s seat that won’t pass and will be a pain in the ass to swap out. I’ve heard mentions of cars failing because of dents and other cosmetic damage. Not to mention some absurd rules like all 4 tires having to be the same exact brand/model (it’s not enough that they’re all the correct size, so if you happen to pop a tire in between inspections and can’t find that exact model, you basically have to swap out all four tires even if the other 3 are in tip-top shape (or get into some good old active corruption by either trying to bribe the inspection technician or having your mechanic take the car to “his” inspection shop – the one where everyone knows he’s a frequent customer so they let smaller stuff pass).

    Bottomline: I’d love for inspections to become biennial but more importantly I’d love them to become more lenient towards stuff that doesn’t affect safety Otherwise it’s just another factor promoting social and economic inequality, since it disproportionately affects lower-income people.

  16. My Figaro was MOT’d in UK when I brought it to Denmark, and I was frankly not impressed: To pass the biannual danish inspection, it needed a brake system overhaul and a couple of days of bodywork on the underside. Oh and the tyres were really old and cracked as well. One of them blew out when I got it home.
    I’m not complaining about the state of the car, because it was really cheap, and a bit better than I expected. Just saying that it would never have passed in any other country.

    So maybe UK should just update their cheap and fast MOTs to EU standards. I know they left the EU, so nobody can really make them. So dear Boris & Co, this advice is free.

    1. Several of those things sound like they *should* have failed the MOT.
      (My Polo passed it’s last MOT with what I later found out was a snapped rear spring, so clearly the cheap garage I went to didn’t check properly).

  17. I can understand the reasoning for inspections, and I think two years is about right, in some states it’s every year, and in some it’s ridiculous what they have to go through. I’ve heard that some states require the inspector to report every car that has failed inspection, to prevent taking it to a more sympathetic inspector.

    There should be a reasonable middle ground, but I’m sure that it will ever happen.

    1. Or do it like we do here in finland: First 3 years for new car no MOT:s. Next 4-10, every second. After that yearly. The failure rates increase in the statistics quite dramatically due corrosion and mileage.

  18. I’m all for annual inspections in the US. At least where I live, the inspections force you to replace your tires, replace burnt out light bulbs, and a good mechanic will tell you your brakes need to be replaced at the next oil change, instead of holding your car for ransom. Sometimes they’ll tell you that a vital part or two actually does need to be replaced due to the evil tin worm or a bushing ground to dust.

    Then I go visit Oregon, see cars with missing hoods and bumpers, with two flashlights duct taped to the grille for lighting, using the steel belts of their worn out tires for traction, and figure having a mechanic tell those drivers the car needs a bit of work before getting back on the road is a good thing.

  19. I live in NY with annual safety and emissions inspections. The little things like having cars with lights out are rare. So are really bald tires. I feel it does help keep the really scary stuff off the roads.

    Finding a quality shop to do inspections can be difficult. Some shops are notorious for inflating estimates for what needs to be done. A good shop lists the things that have to be done to pass and then lists the things coming due like brakes or tires.

  20. I’m inclined to agree that once every two years is sufficient for most cars, for the reasons already stated. If an item isn’t going to last two years, it’s probably not going to pass the inspection in the first place. Relaxing the inspection frequency would be more of a safety compromise if it was something drastic, like one every five years.

    That said though, there are certainly some vehicles that get driven further and harder than others, where two years _could_ be enough time to wear out critical items. It might still be appropriate to require yearly inspections for commercial fleet vehicles.

  21. My experiences with inspections when I lived in New Jersey (about 25 years ago) was that a high percentage of shops would use the inspections to drive (often unnecessary) business. The inspections were all done at mechanic shops. The inspections were something like $10 but something was always wrong with the car and required fixing to pass inspection, so it always seemed to take about $200 to get my sticker.

    1. Yup. In PA I had a PepBoys tell me that I needed new brakes because they were almost gone and the front O2 sensor was bad . The only issue with that was I had just put brand new brakes on it the day before because I knew they were getting low and also the O2 sensor codes and readiness were hard set with the ECU flash I had.

      They were full of shit and I let them know it about the brakes but kept my mouth shut about the O2 other than ‘I want to see you plug the reader in and show me the code.’ They passed me.

  22. “They got a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome”. Couldn’t have said it better myself DT. Less gub’mint intrusion in your life is a good thing. Should only be a very basic safety inspection to ensure someone’s shitbox doesn’t careen into mine, and NEVER any nanny state “emissions” crap.

  23. For quite some time we had to have 6 monthly warrant of fitness checks in New Zealand if your car was over 5 years old, they have since generously changed it to annually if your car was built before 2000, but if you drive something thats 22 years old, you have to have it checked twice a year which is totally bannans! New cars are exempt for 3 years. Annual is fine, biannual would be better.

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