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Vehicle Testing Proposal 3 December 2012 The Department of Infrastructure is considering whether or not to introduce additional vehicle roadworthiness testing. The primary objective is to reduce the risk of road traffic incidents. Currently there are 70,000 vehicles used on the Island’s roads. Of these, 2,000 are commercial vehicles such as buses, taxis and HGVs, which are already required to undertake an annual test. The remaining vehicles are mostly used on a private basis and are only tested if they are more than 3 years old when they are first registered on the Island and then only the once. Based on numerous studies conducted over the last 30 years in various jurisdictions around the world, it has been shown that as vehicles get older, they are more likely to be involved in accidents and the older the vehicle, the more likely serious injuries or fatalities will result. On the Island the Department examines vehicles that have been involved in fatal road traffic incidents and of these 10% appear to have a mechanical cause or a mechanical factor contributing to the incident. At present the Department works with the Constabulary to undertake road side checks. Bald tyres, faulty lights and other obvious issues are regularly found however, such vehicles may have underlying defects with their brakes or steering etc which are not readily observable or tested during road side checks. The Department is therefore seeking your opinion as to whether additional testing should be introduced for vehicles at various ages, i.e. should we test every year, every 5 years, or perhaps as a start introduce one off testing at 10 years or 15 years or combinations of periods. Or should we leave testing as it is currently. A vehicle that has been properly maintained should have no difficulty in passing a roadworthiness test. The link below will take you to a survey which asks various questions. We would be grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete the survey. http://www.gov.im/transport/consultations.gov?menuid=16916&type=current More stories >>>
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