MOT. Dangerous

Buzzard1985

I have a dangerous fault on my MOT.  Got this MOT done the first day I could before the MOT expired.

Can i drive the car as my old MOT is valid or not?   The guy at the garage just said your previous MOT has not expired.  But didn't say yes/no to '' Can i drive or does this dangerous fault invalid any MOT''

Aretnap

Your old MOT is not invalidated by the failure of the test. 

However if the car is in a dangerous condition then you can't legally drive it, regardless of whether or not it has a valid MOT. And now you don't even have the partial excuse of not knowing that it's in a dangerous condition. 

What's the fault? 

angrycrow

From op other post about this car.

• Rear Axle fractured (5.1.1 (a))
• Parking brake efficiency less than 50% of the required value (1.4.2 (a) (ii))

What the op missed off is that these are recorded as a dangerous fault.

From the Gov website dangerous mot fail means.

"A direct and immediate risk to road safety or has a serious impact on the environment. Do not drive the vehicle until it’s been repaired." Whilst there may be time remaining on the old mot certificate it is illegal to drive this car on a public road until the axle is repaired. It cannot even be driven from the mot centre or to a place of repair.

Herzlos

Your MOT will still be valid, in that you won't get pulled by the police for having an expired MOT.

However, your rear axle is fractured and you know about it, so you could still be charged with driving a non-roadworthy car and have no excuse. Personally I wouldn't drive a dangerous car until it was fixed, and you're going to need to get it fixed in the next month anyway, so I'd just get it fixed now.

Buzzard1985

Just finding odd the garage never said to me straight no.  But order the part to be fitted. 

warwick2001

Buzzard1985 said:

Just finding odd the garage never said to me straight no.  But order the part to be fitted. 

I think the garage can only tell you of the dangerous fault, they don't advise whether you should drive the car or not. But its illegal to drive with a dangerous fault, so maybe they feel they don't need to tell you not to drive it?

I wonder if that in the not-so-distant past, a garage somewhere told a customer not to drive their car as it had a dangerous fault, and the customer went aggressively bonkers. So now, to stay completely impartial, they tell you of the fault, and no more. It's then up to the customer to decide whether to drive the car or not. And to sort-of confirm this, the garage has no legal powers to stop you driving it, so why bother trying.

My car is "Dangerous to drive" – What can I do? | MOT Test Information (motester.co.uk)

Belenus

Buzzard1985 said:

I have a dangerous fault on my MOT.  Got this MOT done the first day I could before the MOT expired.

Can i drive the car as my old MOT is valid or not?   The guy at the garage just said your previous MOT has not expired.  But didn't say yes/no to '' Can i drive or does this dangerous fault invalid any MOT''

Are you serious?   

Of course you shouldn't drive a car with a dangerous fault. You are risking injury and death to yourself and others. You are also risking a hefty fine or a prison sentence if you cause a serious accident.

Don't drive it until the fault is properly fixed no matter how inconvenient that may be to you.

NSG666

Buzzard1985 said:

Just finding odd the garage never said to me straight no.  But order the part to be fitted. 

Ok, the current MOT's expiry date is still valid and can you drive it yes if it drives. Can you drive it on a public road legally? No. An MOT inspection may throw up any of four things, Advisories, Minor Defects, Major Defects, Dangerous Defects. The latter two are MOT failures but with a Major Defect you can drive the car away and get it repaired immediately. With a Dangerous Defect the testing station cannot stop you from removing the vehicle by whatever means you want, the onus is on you. A vehicle with a Dangerous Defect cannot legally be driven at all including from an MOT centre, it should be transported only. You are liable for a £2500 fine if you are caught and probably a lot worse if you have an accident.

From the gov website

"You can be fined up to £2,500, be banned from driving and get 3 penalty points for driving a vehicle that has failed its MOT because of a ‘dangerous’ problem."

I think you might have heard the garage say what you wanted to hear rather than what they actually said.

born_again

And no excuse of "I did not know about it" honest officer. As it will be logged on the MOT database.