MOT one month early and it fails - Can I still drive?

shaun_from_Africa

londonTiger wrote: »

Didn't spot the cracked wing mirror for some reason. AFAIK 1 crack is an MOT fail.

It shouldn't be a fail but ultimately it comes down to the tester's opinion.
A damaged offside mirror should only fail if the damage is so bad as to seriously impair the view. (for most cars, a nearside mirror is not a testable item).

colino

If you pass the attitude test, your waved on your way, but how many other obligatory mirrors (or devices nowadays!) did you have that would make one defective one irrelevant anyway?

JimmyTheWig

Does the original question boil down to...
Is it "more illegal" to drive a car that you know has defects than a car that has those same defects but you didn't know about them?

If your car was in a dangerous condition the day before the early test it will still be in a dangerous condition the day after the early test. If it failed on something like a bulb or tyre tread (i.e. something a reasonable driver would be able to notice for themselves) then nothing has changed. But if it failed on something that you wouldn't have known about does anything change, legally, once you know about it?

Spicy_McHaggis

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Does the original question boil down to...
Is it "more illegal" to drive a car that you know has defects than a car that has those same defects but you didn't know about them?

If your car was in a dangerous condition the day before the early test it will still be in a dangerous condition the day after the early test. If it failed on something like a bulb or tyre tread (i.e. something a reasonable driver would be able to notice for themselves) then nothing has changed. But if it failed on something that you wouldn't have known about does anything change, legally, once you know about it?

Simple answer is it can be, if you know the vehicle has a dangerous fault.

JimmyTheWig

Actually, that's not the question at all.

The question is...
If there was a fault with your car that made it dangerous to drive, would you want to know about it so you could stop driving it or would you rather not know for a few weeks in order to continue to drive a dangerous car in ignorance?

Aretnap

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Does the original question boil down to...
Is it "more illegal" to drive a car that you know has defects than a car that has those same defects but you didn't know about them?

If your car was in a dangerous condition the day before the early test it will still be in a dangerous condition the day after the early test. If it failed on something like a bulb or tyre tread (i.e. something a reasonable driver would be able to notice for themselves) then nothing has changed. But if it failed on something that you wouldn't have known about does anything change, legally, once you know about it?

To an extent, yes it does. Like most motoring offences, construction and use offences are strict liability offences, so whether or not you knew about the defect is not relevant to your guilt. It can be relevant to the sentence however, and the Road Traffic Offenders Act makes particular provision for it

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/53/section/48

Where a person is convicted of an offence under section 40A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (using vehicle in dangerous condition etc) the court must not—
(a) order him to be disqualified, or
(b) order any particulars or penalty points to be endorsed on the counterpart of any licence held by him,
if he proves that he did not know, and had no reasonable cause to suspect, that the use of the vehicle involved a danger of injury to any person

Obviously you wouldn't be able to rely on that section if you'd been told by your MOT tester that your vehicle had a dangerous fault.

anotheruser

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

Just because it wouldn't pass because of the blown bulb doesn't mean that the car concerned doesn't have a vaild MOT. It will remain valid until cancelled irrespective of the blown bulb.

Take my post out of the context of the thread... I wasn't replying to the OP, rather the subject / conversation.

AdrianC wrote: »

But it wouldn't be okay. If the vehicle's unroadworthy - and we can debate until the cows come home whether a failed bulb renders it unroadworthy - then it isn't legal to use. No matter what the MOT status of it is.

A blown bulb is just a simple example.

This is my point. The MOT certificate simply states a vehicle WAS okay to drive at some point in the past. However the current status, is likely that is is no longer safe (IE, would fail an MOT test if done there and then), and thus, an MOT test isn't really worth the paper it's printed on.

BeenThroughItAll

anotheruser wrote: »

However the current status, is likely that is is no longer safe (IE, would fail an MOT test if done there and then), and thus, an MOT test isn't really worth the paper it's printed on.

Maybe true, but should the MOT test *need* to be worth the paper its written on?


If drivers would take some responsibility for their vehicles and check simple things like tyres, lights, wipers regularly, and would have their cars regularly serviced (or do it themselves, properly), the MOT would be a simple annual check of roadworthiness, rather than, as is so often the case, the one and only time each year the car's actually checked over.

Joe_Horner

anotheruser wrote: »

However the current status, is likely that is is no longer safe (IE, would fail an MOT test if done there and then), and thus, an MOT test isn't really worth the paper it's printed on.

I guess you haven't seen the sort of things that were on the road before we had MOT testing? Without it, the general state of roadworthiness of the country's fleet would be far lower than it is so, in that sense at least, it's worth every penny.

=rizla=

Joe_Horner wrote: »

I guess you haven't seen the sort of things that were on the road before we had MOT testing? Without it, the general state of roadworthiness of the country's fleet would be far lower than it is so, in that sense at least, it's worth every penny.

Completely agree with this, I've been in some countries without mot;s and there are a lot of wrecks kept on the road, some of them taxi's!!




I've not had one on the new mot's, but didn't the old mot refusal sheet have a box to say this car is unroadworthy/dangerous because xyz, as well as a box for its failed its mot for abc?