Vehicle “Recalls”: in the MOT or not?

Recently there have been several scare stories in the press suggesting that thousands of motorists’ vehicles will fail the MOT because their vehicles have safety-related manufacturing defects which have not been remedied. These articles are wrong. There has been no recent change to the MOT Testing rules which would apply to the vehicle defect Safety Recall system resulting in an MOT failure. However, during the MOT Test, the MOT computer will flag to the MOT Tester if your vehicle is subject to a ‘Recall’  which has not been remedied.  Here’s the full story…

Background

Vehicle Safety Recalls

Modern cars are becoming more and more complex and despite the manufacturers’ best efforts, as well as Government scrutiny, to ensure the vehicles are safe to use on the road and fully comply with all the appropriate legislation. Sometimes however, vehicle defects arise in new vehicles which had not been anticipated or were discovered after the vehicle went into production. Unfortunately, some such defects can potentially result in a dangerous road traffic incident, whereas others, such as a fault in the cars’ entertainment suite, have no bearing on road safety. Both are called ‘Recalls’, but if the defect has the potential to endanger road safety (as defined by the DVSA code of practice), they are called ‘Safety Recalls’.

There is a procedure, monitored by the Driver and Vehicle Services Agency, regarding such recalls wherein car makers must exercise their best efforts to contact the current owners of such vehicles and urge them to take their vehicles to one of the manufacturer’s Dealerships to remedy the fault, which is usually offered free of charge. Unfortunately however, the DVSA have noted that: “At present the system does not distinguish for all manufacturers whether the recall is a safety recall or a general recall when placed on the MOT system”. So how does this work out in practice?

Reminder letters ignored

Surprisingly, despite frequent reminders, a lot of vehicle owners ignore letters sent to them by the vehicle manufacturers offering to remedy safety recall defects free of charge. This despite receiving further letters with increasingly urgent notifications as to the potential danger of not getting the vehicle fixed.

As a result, there are a surprising number of vehicles on the roads which have unresolved problems potentially threatening road safety, the latest DVSA estimate being 4.6 million vehicles, although set against a total recall figure of 51 million vehicles. We discussed this issue at length with a senior executive at the DVSA responsible for vehicle recalls with safety-related defects.  We were surprised that of these vehicles, perhaps even after changing hands a few times, so many still had outstanding safety recalls, in some cases up to ten years after they were first purchased.

So why would anybody ignore those notifications, especially as they could be fixed free of charge at the local dealership? He was unable to know for sure why motorists would fail to have the defect fixed free of charge but suggested that perhaps they were coy about going to the dealerships when they would usually go to their local independent garage to have their servicing, repairs and MOT Tests done. What then are these defects and what criteria are used to assess their likely impact on road safety?

Defining a Safety Defect

Here the DVSA executive was very specific, noting, “… there are general safety regulations which apply to all products supplied to the general public, and at the DVSA we have to interpret how these rules should apply to the automotive sector, so we work with the car makers to agree whether or not a vehicle does carry a potentially dangerous defect”. The criteria, he told us, is that if the defect does affect the vehicle, provided the driver could bring the vehicle to a ‘safe controlled stop’, then the defect would not be regarded as potentially dangerous and therefore not become a Safety Recall. He cited some specific instances where such defects had resulted in serious road traffic outcomes. Some vehicles have spontaneously caught fire, and another defect resulted in a fatal outcome.

People died when a vehicle’s lights failed at night and when the driver stopped, a fast car behind struck the stationary vehicle. He added that in some instances to clarify whether a recall defect was safety-related and potentially threatening to road safety, DVSA would purchase a vehicle in circulation then mimic the defect so they can see what happens when in a controlled situation the fault takes effect. He said, “…we need to find out whether or not our test drivers could indeed bring the vehicle to that ‘controlled stop’, as required”. He also noted that they were also aware that in some circumstances somebody less physically able than their test drivers, a less physically able person for example, may not have been able to bring the vehicle to a ‘controlled stop’, and this is also factored into their decision.

There is also degree of discussion between the DVSA and the car makers on the issue before such defects requiring vehicles to be recalled are determined to be a potential threat to road safety. With some manufacturers selling different vehicle brands, each separate brand is managed by a different organisation with its own administrative protocols. So even if two vehicles may be largely the same, the differences could mean the models have separate recall issues in terms of administration. The DVSA, we understand are working hard with the assistance of the car makers to better streamline the system and improve upon that remedied recall rate. 

Citing safety recalls in MOT results

Since 2017 the DVSA have flagged up in the MOT Test results, vehicles carry outstanding recalls. Yet common sense would suggest that if vehicle has an outstanding safety recall, then it should fail the MOT, so why doesn’t that happen? We discussed this with the executive we talked to at the DVSA. He said that the problem is partially administrative. Whilst all manufacturers have very good relationships with the DVSA, not all of them have administrative systems which can let the DVSA know quickly that a defect in any given car has been rectified; and that delay could pose a problem.

It would be quite possible for a vehicle to have had the defect fixed the previous week prior to the MOT Test, but that information had not at the time of the MOT reached DVSA’s database. So, the vehicle would have been OK for the MOT but incorrectly failed for a defect the vehicle no longer carried. It should also be noted that an MOT inspection is very proscriptive regarding MOT failures, and including recalls as a ‘Reason for Refusal’ may need changes to the MOT legislation.

When discussing this issue with a local garage owner, he made a very reasonable point; noting that a key underlining principle of the MOT was that the condition of the vehicle was determined, “on the day of the Test”, so despite the vehicle having a latent defect which might suddenly endanger road safety; because it had not appeared during the MOT inspection, then surely within the MOT rules it could not be noted as an MOT failure. Nevertheless, the number of vehicles with outstanding defects which have been rectified has increased since they have been flagged up on MOT certificates. The DVSA note that, “…we only seek to use legislative mechanisms where others have failed, …and we have seen a huge improvement in completion rates from 33% up to between 50% and 70%”

Yet safety recalls keep coming. In the UK, in the first 8 months of 2024 over 1.5 million vehicles were notified to DVSA as being affected by a safety recall with, we believe more millions of vehicles on the roads still carrying a potentially dangerous defect.

So, who is Responsible?

A good question. Where does responsibility lie in the event of a tragic accident resulting from a vehicle with a safety recall defect which had not been remedied? This is difficult to assess from a legal viewpoint. The DVSA have an overall responsibility for vehicle safety on British roads. However, there is also a responsibility for vehicle manufacturers to identify any defects carried on their vehicles with the potential to endanger road safety.

They also have further responsibilities to notify the DVSA, and to inform the vehicle owner of Safety Recalls and offer to remedy the defect. On the other hand, vehicle owners also carry a degree of responsibility should the defect result in a serious road traffic incident. They may have been repeatedly officially notified about an inherent defect on their vehicles by the vehicle manufacturer. Yet they may claim they did not receive those letters. Now here’s where the MOT comes in.

Even if by some quirk of the postal system they did not receive the information from the manufacturer, or believed it to be a marketing document so put it straight into the bin, it is much harder to claim they weren’t aware of the defect when they have taken their vehicle to an MOT Testing Station, and the defect is clearly pointed out by the Tester, and appears on their MOT documentation. This, of course, is also an official Government document – not as easily dismissed as a letter from the local car Dealer.

Safety recalls and road safety

So what can we conclude from all of this? Very obviously the DVSA take this very seriously, although reading between the lines from what we’ve heard from them, some vehicle manufacturers are more scrupulous than others when it comes to dealing with the Safety Recall issue. Still, serious road safety incidents seem to only arise relatively rarely due to unresolved safety recalls, despite the large numbers of vehicles carrying such defects on the roads every day.

Or perhaps they are not fully publicised. Yet better safe than sorry should be and is DVSA’s policy on this issue. However. the total number of vehicle recalls is increasing significantly over time. It is estimated that in the last three decades they have increased by a factor of ten. This is most likely a reflection of the increased use of computer systems in modern vehicles, and we all know how frequently computer issues can cause system failures, especially in newly-designed products.

In aviation the computer/system issues resulting in tragic outcomes should be a salutary lesson. We hope that DVSA’s efforts combined with hopefully increasing cooperation from vehicle manufacturers will significantly reduce the number of unresolved vehicle Safety Recalls – and improve road safety on Britain’s roads.

Fake news… but which raises a key issue

So those news stories saying that vehicles will fail the MOT if they carried unresolved Safety Recalls are clearly wrong – it is not an MOT failure. However, there is a very strong argument suggesting that such vehicles should fail the MOT inspection if they carry an inherent safety defect as determined by the DVSA, but currently the difficulty of achieving that is due to delays and other issues regarding vehicle manufacturers sharing vital data accurately, and promptly to the DVSA.

What we don’t know, however, (and neither does the DVSA), is just how many road traffic incidents are caused by vehicles carrying unresolved safety recalls. The DVSA also note that they specifically do not identify the nature of the Safety Recall on MOT documentation as it is primarily intended to prompt the vehicle owner to seek advice and contact the manufacturer. Otherwise, the owner might seek the Tester’s opinion on the issue when he or she would have no idea what the actual problem is. As the DVSA executive we spoke to said, “…this way it keeps the issue clean and direct”.

Nevertheless ensuring safety recalls are remedied as soon as possible is a very important road safety issue, and whilst the DVSA is doing the best that it can to both urge car makers to be as diligent as possible in notifying vehicle owners when their vehicles are subject to a recall – it is surprising that as far as we can gather, it is not identified specifically as being likely to be road safety sensitive.

Perhaps that is something that the DVSA should consider.