Cars in NI

I know this will amaze some people but the great leader Jim Allister does seem to have some interests other than specifically political issues. His web site sometimes has other random things which are interesting.The latest one to catch my eye is the issue of MOTs for cars imported into NI. We all know that the Northern Ireland MOT is very strict. Thankfully Emily and Gordon (my son names the cars after Thomas the Tank engine characters and the names have stuck) have passed despite being 11 and 8 years old and a bit of a struggle to pass the emissions test.

However, cars brought into NI do not need to pass an MOT for their first year here, it seems to be six months for GB. In addition since no record is kept of when a car entered it essentially means that a car brought here from elsewhere never needs to pass an MOT. This is a system which seems an inequity for those of us with UK registered cars. In addition it raises safety issues (are these vehicles safe and who is in charge of checking this; the already over stretched police?). How does insurance work on these vehicles?

It does not seem unreasonable to document vehicles arriving from outside the British Isles and insist that vehicles used here for longer than a certain time (maybe 1 month?) have an MOT with it being an offence not to have a valid MOT after that. It is not vehicles from the RoI which worry me as but ones from mainland Europe. I appreciate the potential problem of the border and different policies in RoI but since the overwhelming of vehicles entering either the UK or RoI will have come through GB ports, this should not be an impossible issue to solve.

Any comments?

Turgon

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