Pedantic legal question

May 17, 2006 25 Replies

Purely out of interest... In itself, is it technically speaking illegal to disconnect the drive to the speedo/odo, if you have some other suitably accurate means of measuring your speed in your vehicle?



(Clearly if you were doing this with an attempt to defraud, by having the vehicle display a lower odo reading than was really the case, it would be illegal - but that's not what I'm asking.)


Sorry, 'intent', not 'attempt'.

IANAL but I wouldn't thave thought so. It's not even a testable item.

IIRC a speedo has to work to get a MOT.

AFAIK there is no law that says a vehicles fitted speedo must work, as long as it has a device that shows it's speed in mph. Sat nav comes to mind. Mike.

I've had cars pass MoT with defective speedos.

It would appear that it is not. That seems a bit silly.

Quite possibly. A customer of mine some years ago had a sherpa van whose speedo didn't work. Three years on the trot that I Know of, and no comment by the tester, despite the mileage being the same.

Steve

Does it even have to have any speedo at all? One could think of a situation where you could estimate your own speed and as long as you weren't actually speeding would it matter?

Yes. It has to have a speedo[1]. The speedo has to work to a specified accuracy. It just isn't part of the MOT test. It's an anomaly, IMHO.

[1] All right, it has to have a speed measuring device, let's just call it a speedo.

Steve

My car passed despite the speedo not working for some time.

But they don't check it does...

they check it on the rolling road whilst doing the breaks

Not on my last MOT - I 'drove' the car while they tested the brakes.

gazzafield (rufty_tufty snipped-for-privacy@nospam.saysI.ko) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

You don't.

gazzafield (rufty_tufty snipped-for-privacy@nospam.saysI.ko) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

I've got perfectly legal vehicles without a speedo fitted - and they never have had one fitted.

aussie bongo ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.coDOTuk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

That's *BRAKES*. You're in trouble if they're breaks.

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You show us where in the tester's manual it describes the speedo test procedure and the fail criteria...

shazzbat ( snipped-for-privacy@spamlessness.fsnet.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Not all vehicles do.

I had a motorcycle with kph clocks; I removed the speedo cable and installed a bicycle computer - it worked fine, was very accurate and passed several MOTs like that. AFAIK speedos aren't tested as part of the MOT test anyway...

Q.

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