My MOT is due mid Oct, but as always I like to get it done a month before to give me time to sort out problems. What happens if it fails. Am I still legally ok to drive it until the MOT expires or does the fail mean its off the road at that point?
Graham Harvest
you have the till the October one expires
There are two points.
An MOT is simply a bit of paper that must be current to avoid prosecution for not having one if needed. It only checks the condition of the car on that day - not for the next year.
A car must always be in roadworthy condition - regardless of that bit of paper.
However, I'd guess it would be more heavily penalised if you used an unroadworthy car while knowing it to be so - like after an early MOT which it failed.
I'd agree with all of that. Plus with the whole thing now computerised it's a lot easier for the police car behind you to know you've just failed an MOT.
John
The fail makes no difference whatsoever as to the legality of driving your car.
If the car is unroadworthy its ilegal to drive on the road
Which is independent of the MOT.
Quite right.
If the car is unroadworthy after it is tested, it was unroadworthy before,
The fail makes no difference to the roadworthiness of the car.
If it went to court and it came out that you willfully drove a unroadworthy car knowing it to be so you might get a larger fine - and rightly so.
It is a well established point of law that ignorance is no defence.
True. It wouldn't affect the conviction, but it *may* affect the penalty.
Quite right. Would a blown number plate light make a car driven during daylight hours unroadworthy?
For the record, it passed today without a single advisory. So another year for my 16 year old Ford.
Graham
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