Less than half of the public questioned voted for the four year plan
The Department for Transport (DfT) yesterday confirmed that a car’s first MoT test will remain at three years.
In January 2017, a public consultation was announced to find out people’s opinion on changing a car’s first MoT test to four years instead of the current three.
If the plan had been given the go ahead, it would have been introduced this year, however, after resistance from those within the industry, less than half of the public questioned voted for the introduction of the four year plan, citing road safety as their main cause for concern.
A car’s first MoT test to remain at three years © Copyright David Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
All new cars have had to have an MoT test after three years and once a year afterwards since 1967 but transport minister Andrew Jones claimed that vehicles on the road today are ‘much safer than they were 50 years ago’ and would have liked to have seen the MoT test for new cars extended to four years ‘to help save motorists money’.
According to the Government, increasing the test by one year would have saved motorists around £100million a year but the public’s response proved that road safety far outweighed saving a few pounds.
Recently released MoT figures for 2016 showed that over 2.4 million cars had their first test in that year and cost on average £54.85 for each driver, which equates to more than £130 million in total for motorists in the UK.
The MoT pass rate stands at around 85%, which means at least 360,000 vehicles failed their very first test, with the most common reasons for failure including tyres, lighting and braking faults.
“The MOT test focuses drivers’ minds on the state of their vehicle. No one wants to see unnecessary costs for motorists but keeping this frequency of inspection could actually save people money by alerting them to problems before they become serious, expensive to fix and dangerous to other road users,” said director of the RAC Foundation, Steve Gooding.
Plans may have been scrapped for the extension of the first MoT test, however the ruling to enable any car over 40 years-old to be exempt from an annual examination was given the go ahead.
As of May this year, any car or motorcycle which is four decades old will no longer have to be tested.
Please click here to find out more about our car leasing services and amazing deals, or give us a call NOW on 0800 311 8290.
