Abandoned Vehicles

Drive along the A14 in Suffolk, seems every other layby has a car in various states of dismantlement.

The End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive, which is going through its final stages in the European Parliament, will place the onus of disposal and recycling upon the vehicle manufacturer, and no doubt will lead to an increase in car prices. However, I can't figure out who would be responsible for a 1970's Morris Marina, for example :-)

Terry D.

BMW owns the rights to the Morris name...

-- James

John Pugh MP (among others) has been trying to get the cost of vehicle disposal included in the original purchase price. Makes a lot of sense. The person who is left with the car at the end of its useful life is probably the one who is least able to afford to get it scrapped, but adding an extra £20 or so onto the initial price won't make a lot of difference to the buyer.

David.

Coincidence! That's where I usually see them. The A12 heading down into Essex has a few too.

At the moment the person responsible for the cost of disposal is the owner/keeper (I know some people don't register their car) and the responsibility for organising the disposal, if the owner doesn't do it, is the council. I was more than a little annoyed a while ago when the council in Hull wanted £100 each to remove a collection of untaxed vehicles that had been left in a "residents only" car park. They disappeared after a polite note was stuck on the windscreens.

One way to get rid of them is to wait until some kids take an interest then phone the police. I saw some kids (maybe 13 or 14 years old) trying to start a car and called the police. They came out and would not leave the scene until the car had been removed. The owner didn't want it back and they had to wait for the scrap yard to collect it. Struck me as a big waste of time that could be avoided if the councils carried out their "statutory" duties.

Well I've been down the A11 to Norwich (or on to Great Yarmouth) about 4 or

5 times in the last 6 months, and twice I've seen either a burnt out car, or on one occasion a van actually on fire (and well in to the process) on the side of the A11 between Norwich and Snetterton.

Peter

Hi "Terry D"

And who's got the balls to own up to the Allegro!!

Every year that a car is on the road more than £1000 goes to the government. Some of this is in the form of parking fees that go to local governments. A scrap yard will remove a car for around £20. If emergency services have to be called out for a fire or theft it costs far more than £20.

I feel it is typical of our local governments to take with one hand and then not give with the other. It may be a statutory duty for councils to deal with abandoned vehicles, but nothing really happens if they don't. If I don't pay my council tax I go to jail.

As a member of the electorate I would prefer to vote for (and pay for) a council who I can see is doing their job.

And a bit on the often scandalous attitudes of scrap car merchants - Bham City Council has an arrangement where cars are collected for free by a range of contractors. The council pays them a small fee, and the collector gets the steel salvage value - seems perfectly equitable to me.

So why is it that neighbouring Solihull Council always recommends one local dealer, but presumably doesn't subsidise them because they're always carping on about "if the car's not got an engine, we're going to charge you £45 to remove it"? Smacks of back handers to me.

A friend who works for Corus (ex British Steel) tells me about steel prices, and the fact that most of our processed scrap steel is shipped to Eastern Europe. There, apparently, is a scarcity of non-virgin steel in this country, and I think the price per tonne peaked at £70 last year...

Jeez, even a stripped out shell should yield £45 shouldn't it? Okay, take out levies, overheads and the like, but a sensible collection round within a local area by a diesel vehicle, collecting 2/3 vehicles at a time is not a recipe for financial ruin is it?

-- Ken Davidson