Police fail to tackle growing banger menace

By Nick Gibbs

13th May 2010

Blown headlight bulbs, bald tyres and faulty brakes – a badly maintained car can be a menace.

Yet research show they are becoming more and more common on Britain’s roads as overworked police increasingly turn a blind eye to what could be dangerous defects.

The latest figures from the Home Office show that police warnings to drivers of defective or poorly modified cars have fallen by a nearly a third in the last 10 years.

The Association for Chief Police Officers claim the drop is because cars are “less susceptible to deterioration”, but we can reveal that MoT failures are actually going UP, which means we now have more dangerous bangers on the road than ever before.

In 2008 the police issued just 87,000 vehicle defect rectification notices compared to 251,000 in 1998. If given a notice, the driver has 14 days to get the problem fixed by a local MoT centre. “A couple of years ago we did quite a lot of them, now if we do one every six months, I’ll be surprised,” said Tony Jeff, head of quality control at Clapham North MoT in South London.

However government MOT figures show over a third of all cars fail their test, rising from 33 percent 2006/7 to 36 percent in 2008/9.

Head of road safety at the AA, Andrew Howard, blames a cut in traffic police. “More policeman have been withdrawn to provide added protection against crime and terrorism; we’ve seen a 20 percent cut in police on traffic duty in the last few years,” he said. “In many ways their job has been taken up by cameras. Enforcing things like headlights not working is very labour intensive.”

However, the police argue cameras help identify illegal cars. “Technology like ANPR may be a contributing factor – if a vehicle is untested and uninsured, that will show up on the Police National Computer,” according to a spokeswoman for the Association of the Chief of Police.
What’s your view? Do you see more defective cars on the road than you used to? Let us know below!