Can you legally drive after mot failure

sofiar

From what I know back in the day, if the car fails then you have approx 14 days from date of failure to make right, if its classed as a 2 seater or 5 seater the the car must be roadworthy for the max number of occupants. If you don't need a 5/4 seater I would suggest you get a 2 seater then you don't have to worry about the upkeep of the other seats!

mrmot

ilikethesimpsons wrote: »

Wrong.

https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test

Driving a vehicle that’s failed

You must not drive the vehicle on the road if it fails the test, even if the MOT hasn’t run out, except to:

• have the failed defects fixed
• a pre-arranged MOT test appointment

You can be fined up to £2,500, be banned from driving and get 3 penalty points for driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition.



EDIT, should have read all the replies first, I see this has been covered.

But us this correct?, on the next page it completely contradicts this by saying:
Taking your vehicle away for repairs

You can take your vehicle away if your MOT certificate is still valid.



from here:


https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/retests


The tester has no power to prevent a vehicle that has failed the test being driven away. I handed the keys to a customer whose car had failed the test because of a burst brake pipe, the only thing that I could do was point out that his car was dangerous and that he shouldn't be driving it.

You usually have 10 working days for a retest. Seat belt requirements are governed by the number of seats fitted to the car, their orientation and the cars date of first use, we have flow charts to follow. If it doesn't have a seat fitted then there is no seat belt required for that seat, if there's a seat belt and no corresponding seat it's not considered to be a seat belt and not part of the test.

Joe_Horner

gov.uk wrote:

https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test

Driving a vehicle that’s failed

You must not drive the vehicle on the road if it fails the test, even if the MOT hasn’t run out, except to:

• have the failed defects fixed
• a pre-arranged MOT test appointment

You can be fined up to £2,500, be banned from driving and get 3 penalty points for driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition.

Sadly, like an awful lot of the stuff on gov.uk, that info has been dumbed-down for the masses to the point that it's effectively wrong.

There are two aspects to driving and MOTs / roadworthiness, each with their own associated offences.

One is driving without a valid MOT. You will NOT be committing this offence by continuing to drive on a previous, in-date, MOT after a failure.

The other is driving an unroadworthy vehicle. You MIGHT be committing this offence by continuing to drive after a fail.

BUT, driving for repairs, or driving to a booked test does NOT provide a defence against driving an unroadworthy vehicle (in a fairly narrow sense of "dangerous" faults for this purpose - which are the ones you can get £2k fines / penalty points / bans for).

If it's unroadworthy in that way then it should be trailered for repairs and only driven to another test when it's no longer unroadworthy, not "driven for repairs" as gov.uk suggests you can. So, by following the gov.uk advice, you could easily find yourself on the wrong side of the law.

On the other hand, if you fail an MOT and then correct the defects (say, get a damaged tyre changed, or fill the washer bottle, or replace a brake light bulb, or remove the side lights so you don't need the faulty brake light any more) then you're perfectly free to continue driving until the old one expires without (as gov.uk implies) getting it tested again.

In other words, following that advice from gov.uk could leave you breaking the law OR not driving a car you're legally allowed to drive. Which makes it pretty useless advice really

loskie

Sadly, like an awful lot of the stuff on gov.uk, that info has been dumbed-down for the masses to the point that it's effectively wrong.

thats progress for you. Be thankful you don't work for one of the govt agencies

Joe_Horner

loskie wrote: »

Be thankful you don't work for one of the govt agencies

If I did I'd be starting a wiki-war on their advice pages....... :rotfl:

Ebe_Scrooge

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Sadly, like an awful lot of the stuff on gov.uk, that info has been dumbed-down for the masses to the point that it's effectively wrong.

Blimey, if we can't trust the "official" gov.uk websites, who can we trust ???

I'm not disagreeing or arguing with you in any way. But with questions like this, I always try and quote the "official" government websites where possible, on the assumption that they can be trusted to give the true answer. If we can't trust them to give us accurate information, who can we trust ? It's a tad worrying.

<Edit> I wonder just how many traffic cops are actually fully conversant with the exact details of the relevant laws, as you so eloquently explain them ?

ellie99

I asked the question this afternoon because my father had told me that he had read in a car magazine that this was to be a new change in the law, but I couldn't find anything online about it, apart from the gov.uk website.

I will ask to see his magazine tomorrow just for my own curiosity to see what it says.

arcon5

ilikethesimpsons wrote: »

Wrong.

https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test

Driving a vehicle that’s failed

You must not drive the vehicle on the road if it fails the test, even if the MOT hasn’t run out, except to:

• have the failed defects fixed
• a pre-arranged MOT test appointment

You can be fined up to £2,500, be banned from driving and get 3 penalty points for driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition.



EDIT, should have read all the replies first, I see this has been covered.

Yes but the mot IS still valid!
A car have no mot and still be of roadworthy condition. And a car can have a valid mot and be unroadworthy.

BeenThroughItAll

ellie99 wrote: »

I asked the question this afternoon because my father had told me that he had read in a car magazine that this was to be a new change in the law, but I couldn't find anything online about it, apart from the gov.uk website.

I will ask to see his magazine tomorrow just for my own curiosity to see what it says.

It's mentioned on the first page of this month's 'Car Mechanics' magazine in the editor's column.

onomatopoeia99

Ebe_Scrooge wrote: »

Blimey, if we can't trust the "official" gov.uk websites, who can we trust ???

The relevant legislation is all you can trust. This is available online, every piece of statute law that remains in force can be found on the relevant government website (legislation.gov.uk), going all the way back the to Statute of Marlborough in 1267.