NI’s failing MOT system needs a permanent fix…

The car-reliant nature of Northern Ireland means that most households here have access to a motor vehicle. So most will also be familiar with how broken the MOT (’Ministry of Transport’) system for testing the safety of vehicles here has become. There are 1.3 million registered vehicles in NI, and those over 4 years old currently require an annual test of their road-worthiness and environmental compliance. These examinations can only be conducted at one of 15 Stormont-run ‘Driver and Vehicle Agency’ centres – facilities which in recent years have suffered significant disruptions from which they’ve yet to fully recover. In January 2020 cracks were discovered in the vehicle lifts in some test centres, resulting in a blanket cancellation of tens of thousands of appointments whilst all facilities audited their equipment (52 faulty lifts were eventually identified and replaced).

The second blow came a few months later with Covid 19 and its well-versed impacts. These two events understandably caused a significant backlog in tests – but five years on the system has still not fully recovered. Significant delays are now the norm for MOT testing in NI, with an average waiting time of more than 100 days by the end of May 2024. This has in-turn put even more strain upon our under-performing MOT system, with a record 50,000 ‘no shows’ also registered for test bookings last year. It seems that the longer people have to wait for a test, the more likely they are to fail to attend.

Unexpected events can and do arise, but there is clearly a high level of fragility within the system that ensures mechanical safety on our roads. Faced with ongoing MOT delays, the Department for Infrastructure (DFI) has sought to buy time whilst it seeks to expand the number of test centres. First it automatically issued one-year ‘Temporary Exemption Certificates’ in June 2024 to all private cars less than 7 years old – enabling an estimated 115,000 vehicles to remain on our roads without up-to-date safety certificates. This has had some success in reducing demand, with test waiting times down to 30 days by February 2025.

However – DFI have recently announced that these ‘temporary’ exemptions will continue for at least one more year, confirming that the test system is still struggling. They have therefore proposed a more extreme measure which is currently undergoing public consultation. And that is to change the required frequency of tests from annually to every 2 years. The argument in favour of this is that improvements in vehicle safety have reduced the need to test. And it is indeed true that the design-standards of modern cars mean they have never been safer. But be in no doubt – if implemented, this change will increase both the presence of unroadworthy vehicles on our streets. Because even with better design standards, 18% of all MOT tests across NI in 2023-24 still resulted in a failure.

That means that more than 1 in every 6 vehicles tested here currently are found to be unsafe. And the problems identified are often due to wear and tear – which affects all vehicles, regardless of age or design. The most common defects in failed MOT tests in 2023/24 were brake issues (50%) followed by suspension (41%), electrical system (36%) and “wheels, tyres and hubs” (18%) (NB : The total exceeds 100%, as more than 1 type of defect can be identified in a failed MOT). As all motorists know, issues with worn break pads, tyre treads or failed light bulbs can and do arise – and often it’s only when their car undergoes an MOT that they even realise.

So by testing less often, many of those 1 in 6 vehicles which currently fail will remain on our roads in an unsafe condition for another 12 months. Furthermore, not all drivers ensure that their vehicles undergo an annual service – and instead rely on the MOT process to identify vehicle faults for them. And of those who do service their vehicles annually, many are often only prompted/reminded to do so by an impending MOT test. So testing less frequently will therefore amplify the number of unserviced vehicles on our roads. This is not mere personal conjecture. DFI itself acknowledges that NI’s already-high insurance premiums will increase if biennial MOT testing is introduced. So not only would that change make our roads less safe, we would also have to pay for the privilege too! All of which combines to beg the question – how did our MOT system get so broken that a ‘solution’ which is guaranteed to increase unsafe and unserviced vehicles on our roads and make insurance bills more expensive is somehow deemed an appropriate response? Should the focus not be on finding a cost-effective and user-friendly way to conduct significantly more tests instead?

This is indeed part of what DFI is doing – as alongside their proposal to reduce test frequency they are also increasing the number of test centres. Two are currently under construction in Greater Belfast (though delayed significantly), with further facilities also proposed for Enniskillen and Derry. These new centres are incredibly expensive to create and equip, however – costing between £12-£17million each. And that’s before factoring in their annual running costs. Once these four proposed new centres are completed, NI will have a network of 19 MOT Test Centres – a ratio of 1 for every 68,000 registered vehicles here.

There is, however, another way to increase the volume and slash the waiting time for MOT tests here – and to do so at almost no additional cost to ratepayers. And it’s a way which has been commonplace in Britain for years, with a high degree of public support. In contrast to NI’s paltry 19 proposed MOT test locations, Britain has 23,500 locations conducting 30 million tests a year. That amounts to one test centre for every 1,700 registered vehicles in Britain – 40 times greater than the level in NI. This is achieved by the Department for Transport in London licensing ordinary garages to conduct MOT tests, whilst the Department retains control over the test rules and pricing. As a result, in many parts of Britain it is possible to get even a same-day booking for an MOT – and all within a regime which not only maintains annual testing, but starts testing cars a year earlier than NI does (i.e. at 3yrs old, versus 4yrs here).

Readers who are unfamiliar with the approach in Britain may understandably have questions regarding the risk of fraud or safety – but the data there points towards a system which on the whole works extremely well. Only 2% of road incidents in Britain are the result of mechanical failings, which strongly supports the safety of MOT testing there. As for motorists being ripped off – the potential for that does of course exist, but again the evidence suggests it is extremely low. In 2021-22 there were 1,324 proven MOT fraud causes – 0.004% of all tests. And where such cases are identified, they result in prosecutions and bans. Out of the total of 66,000 authorised MOT test examiners across Britain, in 2021 127 were banned from running test centres and a further 288 banned from conducting tests (NB: not all for fraud).

In addition – once an examiner or test centre is prosecuted, every certificate they have issued over the previous 12 months is automatically cancelled, with the drivers contacted and a re-test required. So yes – there is of course a risk that unscrupulous outlets could attempt to charge motorists for work that isn’t required, just as sadly there is a risk of unscrupulous activity in many forms of consumer transaction. But statistically it is very small when it comes to MOTs in Britain. And besides – how do we know there isn’t also fraud within Northern Ireland’s testing system? Many motorists here use a local garage to conduct pre-MOT checks of their vehicles, for example. So how do we know that our system doesn’t just shift the risk and incidence of unscrupulous trading to that pre-stage – with the situation exacerbated by the fact we don’t have the measures for detection and enforcement that the testing regime in Britain contains?

At least in Britain if you’re not happy with your experience at a test centre you have 23,499 other places you can go to instead (including a number of councils who run MOT test centres for the general public). Or how do we know that our system isn’t being cheated at NI test centres themselves? What is perhaps most telling about the MOT system in Britain is its high level of public acceptance, and the absence of any genuine pressure for it to be changed. Ask anyone with direct experience of the MOT systems both here and in Britain and you’re likely to hear few if any preferences for NI’s way of doing things. Furthermore – on a number of occasions now the UK Gov has proposed switching Britain’s MOT testing to once every two years, as is currently being floated in NI. But every time they have rejected the idea after public consultation and pressure from road safety organisations.

Replicating Britain’s MOT system in NI would be a sensible solution to a needless problem. It would quickly eliminate the ongoing backlog and delays which blight NI’s centralised testing regime, and prevent them from arising again. It would maximise choice and convenience for motorists, who would have multiple test centres to choose from no matter where they live. It would provide a boost for hundreds of small businesses in every corner of NI, whilst reducing the need for the State to duplicate things like expensive vehicle lifts (which the majority of garages will already have).

And at a time when we are constantly told that Stormont has no money for vital services, it would render the expenditure of tens of millions of pounds on new government-owned garages unnecessary. Our politicians and civil servants know how MOTs are conducted in Britain, yet persist with NI’s failed system of centralised provision. This is not about safety or efficiency, or any credible concern for consumer rights, but is instead driven by ideology. Infrastructure Ministers here have traditionally rejected Britain’s tried and tested model of decentralised MOT testing by labelling it ‘privatisation’ – a claim which doesn’t withstand scrutiny.

To see a genuinely privatised MOT testing system, just look over the border – where a single private company is contracted by the Irish government to conduct every single safety test on vehicles across the whole Republic. Britain’s system – which utilises tens of thousands of small businesses in every corner and community, all working within government-determined rules and prices – is completely different, and more akin to a dispersed co-operative model. Sadly our politicians appear to prioritise flawed ideological tropes above the delivery of competent and safe services which work for the people they serve. And so we remain saddled with an ineffective State-run MOT regime which is incapable of recovering from events that occurred half a decade ago, which requires safety rules to be compromised just to manipulate its performance figures, and which demands ever-larger sums of scarce public money just so it can limp towards its next inevitable crisis.

There must be a better way – and experience across the Irish Sea suggests strongly that there is. And for anyone who fears that such a system could result in drivers being defrauded by garages – the way to deal with that would be to establish sufficiently strong deterrence. Ongoing Trading Standards checks to root out any offenders – complete with hefty fines, long-term bans and criminal records for those caught – would make it just not worth garages attempting to defraud motorists for what would be relatively small sums of money.

We don’t buy our cars from government-run outlets. We don’t fuel them at State-owned service stations. We don’t service them with Stormont-employed mechanics, or change their tyres at government-managed garages. Yet somehow we’re told that only Stormont that can be trusted to check and certify the safety of vehicles in Northern Ireland. Even when it proves itself completely incapable of doing so in a timely or efficient manner. So we need to be honest with ourselves that NI’s centrally-controlled and grossly under-performing MOT regime is akin to a failing Soviet throw-back. We need to stop clinging to a flawed ideology that trumps safety, competency and efficiency. And rather than chuck even more money at what is structurally a bad way of doing something, we should instead acknowledge that our neighbours do it better and seek to replicate the positives of their system here.

If you feel similarly – DFI’s public consultation on MOT testing runs until 16^thApril, and can be found here : Consultation on Biennial MOT Testing – NI Direct – Citizen Space . The (rather lengthy) preamble information for the survey specifically rules out ‘privatisation’ of MOT testing, but you can still raise the idea in the comments sections of their survey.