How come the taxpayer is on the hook for the replacements ? Surely in the UK the MOT testing equipment is paid for by the garage undertaking the tests ?
whatever happened to inspection pits ?
You presumably didn't read the bit of the article which said that, in NI, garages don't do MOTs - they're all done by government-owned testing stations.
Obviously not :)
Not sure if that makes it any better or worse, really ?
Bloody dangerous looking lifts, if you ask me. More scope for collapse than even two post lifts, let alone the more common four post.
As I asked, whatever happened to inspection pits ?
My only reservation being if something hot and nasty is going to pour out from under a car, at least you can get away from it on a lift.
Pits are still around, e.g. in Lorry testing stations, but most car and van places have lifts these days. Much more convenient, (slightly) less nasty if you drive into them.
Havent seen one of those in a hell of a long time now.
Get yourself a 7.5 tonner and you will see one soon enough.
Ever harder to make reasonably safe, especially for petrol vehicles (explosion risks). Read the HSE guidance if you want chapter and verse.
All MOTs are done at 15 government run testing stations - a good idea, as it removes any temptation to fail something just to make money on the repair.
Maybe they'll now take the sensible decision that any Engineer could have suggested to them - use multiple types of lift, so there is no common mode of failure. That could be 3 types, split between stations, so only 5 have common items, so only one third of stations are likely to be unavailable at any time; or, as each station probably has more than one lift, make sure that they mix types at each station. In either case capacity might be reduced, but could be brought back up by working shifts at/on the available ones.
Over time, they should do the same with other essential items - exhaust analysers, brake testers, etc. - although they still have the option of a Tapley tester for brakes anyway.
See above.
One of my local MOT garages still uses a pit. They are no longer the preferred option though - too much scope for someone falling in, a car being badly positioned and dropping one or both wheels on one side in, they collect spillages that need to be cleaned out or groundwater leaks in, they collect heavier than air gases and people have suffocated in them (or LPG could collect there and be an explosion risk) and, of course, they are no use for the odd three-wheeler that may turn up.
SteveW
Something the rUK should have had from day one.
All fair points.
reverse the 3 wheeler over the pit, just don't go too far :) Or if you need more access, put boards down, drive it further on & remove some boards.
I wonder if the engineer would have made that recommendation after considering also the possible extra costs - eg from buying smaller numbers of lifts, from maintenance of different types, and possibly from having to train staff in the use of different types. Some I have known would; but others would dismiss such matters as "interference from bloody bean counters".
In this case, I would hope that they would have pushed for a mix of makes, you don't want (as has happened) a common fault closing every centre at the same time.
They have partially got round it. Newer cars don't need an MOT yet, older ones are having their MOT expiry dates extended for up to 4 months. The big problem is cars in-between, that are due for their first MOT - as they have no existing MOT, they don't have a system for extending the (non-existent) one!
SteveW
I was just wondering about pits, probably health and safety hazard for apprentices on their mobiles! Brian
Maybe an engineer would make that decision, but it wouldn't necessarily be a good one.
MOTs are not mission critical. In the slim chance of a fault with the equipment they can simply extend the time, as they have done. If a car doesn't get an MOT for 15 months, it isn't the end of the world. There's a chance some rustbucket will fall apart in 13 months when it wouldn't in 11, but the likelihood is fairly slim. Across the border cars up to 10 years old only get tested every two years, and life continues.
Meanwhile, having to maintain a diverse set of lifts over a relatively small number of testing centres adds risk (parts, certification, training, misunderstanding that model A works differently to model B) and costs.
You're optimising for one failure mode while excluding all the others.
Theo
Except that although they are extending existing MOTs, there is no facility to apply this to cars that are due their first MOT, but have not had one yet or cars that have expired MOTs but need to be put back on the road and there is, as yet, no guarantee that insurance companies will accept an extended MOT as valid. Making it somewhat mission critical for anyone with any of these problems and who cannot work without their vehicle.
I've been in garages here that have three types of lift in the same garage. Bought at different times and sometimes for different purposes - they seem to manage okay.
With such reliance on a small number of test stations and people's livelihoods depending upon having a legal car, diversity of equipment should have been a requirement from the start and not just for the one item.
In the rest of the UK, there are hundreds of other options if your local MOT station is shut. Even the one system they all use (the computer link) has a local only mode to cater for lost connectivity or central server failure.
NI has opted to have a centralised system, but has not provided the required resilience that such a system dictates.
SteveW
The lifts in the NI testing stations also incorporate a lift. I once witnessed a woman drop two wheels into one.
The lifts also incorporate mechanical systems to test suspensions, steerting etc. Gives them a good rattle
Isn't 20/20 hindsight wonderful
It is really OTT to suggest worrying about common mode failure in this context. It sounds as though they were bought as a single contract, and they might have a single maintenance/inspection contract too.
After all, following a single failure you have a revealed fault, which
*should* prompt inspection of all the others. In this case it didn't even require a failure, the cracks were detected during routine inspection.Common mode failure is something to consider in things like aeroplanes and nuclear power stations, especially if there could be an unrevealed fault (so that a number of safety systems could develop incipient failures).
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