MOT changes/petition blah blah

[Uncle Jimmy]

There's a group of knobheads known as the 'Adam Smith institute'. Seems to me they go about trying (and succeeding) to influence government for their own ends.

I see today that their plan is for the MOT test to be completely phased out.

Personally I think that the MOT is both very effective and useful in other ways for those of us who like to maintain our cars. If you do agree sign the petition.

 

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/210099

 

Worth also looking up the Adam Smith institute and other 'think tanks' and seeing just what an influence they have.

[DodgeRover]

Didn't you realise the UK is run entirely for the benefit of big businesses and fheir whims and those with enough power and money to buy influence, rather than for the benefit of people of the country.

[HillmanImp]

That petition is as vague as the Conservatives plan on leaving the EU.  

[Mr_Bo11ox]

These dickheads were on the radio yesterday saying they had done some fancy statistical study of US road safety data for states with and without MOT tests and concluded that having an MOT test had no significant influence on road safety, therefore there was scope to reduce or remove the frequency of tests performed here, (he suggested perhaps every 24 rather than 12 months). Putting to one side the fact that common sense tells you that's utter bollocks, it was suggested to them that emissions testing is also part of the MOT and therefore that we all benefit from it, not just potential accident victims. The guy admitted that there was some value in testing cars periodically for their emissions, and that that element of any test should probably continue (making a mockery of his argument straight away). He kept banging on about his 'evidence' that backed up his theory, but I wished they could have got an MOT tester on the radio to tell him "OK mate, this week I've pulled up 10 bald tyres, 5 airbag lights, 8 split brake hoses, half a dozen ABS lights and a bagful of dead lightbulbs, what does your 'evidence' have to say about that?"

 

It probably was the most clear-cut case of an academically clever person coming on the radio and talking utter balls that I have heard in several months.

 

The supposed benefit of cancelling the test was that it would 'save drivers money' - a spectacular 50p a week if the test halved in frequency. 

 

I know politics is banned on here but its important to mention that he was from the Adam Smith Institute - this is a freewheeling, free-market think tank dedicated to reducing regulation, taxation and 'the state' in general. If you can think of a really awful government policy of the last 20 years or so, they probably dreamed it up oriignally.

[meggersdog]

Just as you posted that a customer drove away from here with a dangerous fail for having a front tyre with the cord exposed

[Uncle Jimmy]

Ha! I knew this would open a can of worms;

I like the MOT and I dislike pricks such a Madsen Pirie and his ilk so the answer is obvious sign the petition and next time your in London village drop by the 'institute' (no, not that one with the white coats) and take a piss through their letterbox.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Hear hear!!

[sierraman]

Interestingly a car on my street has just failed the test, they're proper yokels, they'd run it with three wheels on, anyway it failed on several issues with the brakes, dense grey smoke and corrosion to the subframe mounts. Most people would fuck it off, its knackered. But some people wouldn't realise this until the brakes failed or the subframe came away on a roundabout.

 

These think tanks need to get a grip, all these guardian reading idiots, who despite several years at university or wherever have no actual life experience or knowledge of what they spout off about.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Seeing as there's this shower called the ASI, the 'public policy research institute ', 'Fabian society'...Can't think of any more, we should start the Autoshite Institute to reintroduce rationing, grease nipples and flares.

[Uncle Jimmy]

These think tanks need to get a grip, all these guardian reading idiots, who despite several years at university or wherever have no actual life experience or knowledge of what they spout off about.

In point of fact they cross the spectrum. What they all share is that they are disconnected elitists who by accident of birth think they are above the majority.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I doubt the Adam Smith institute are big Guardian lickers! I am though.

[sierraman]

When the revolution happens the only think tank will be Autoshite.

[MikeR]

much as I dislike some aspects of the mot in that minor little things can get you a fail as opposed to being advised to fix it later ...  ie gaiters , lights , minor welding , stuff that would not make the car dangerous , but could be fixed at the owners convenience  .....

 

I am also aware that some people would drive around in death traps that they never check over from one year to the next and would not notice if the arse end fell off .. I myself like to check over mine quite often and am aware that somat is not right   ... and get it sorted

 

but thanks to the chancers in society , everything has to be put down in black and white , hence the mot

[Uncle Jimmy]

You were doing well for a while there Boll, 10/10 for effort

[HillmanImp]

all these guardian reading idiots, who despite several years at university or wherever have no actual life experience or knowledge of what they spout off about.

 

What's anything got to do with a newspaper? This sounds like something a Sun reading idiot would say, who despite all their life experience can't see past what NewsCorp tell them.

[inconsistant]

I though 'right wing think tank' was rhyming slang.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Anyway, sign the fucker and pass it on, you gets to stick a metaphorical tyre iron sideways up their collective jaxis

[sierraman]

What's anything got to do with a newspaper? This sounds like something a Sun reading idiot would say, who despite all their life experience can't see past what NewsCorp tell them.

I don't read any newspapers strangely enough.

[HillmanImp]

I don't read any newspapers strangely enough.

 

I wasn't saying you do, just applying the same logic as your argument above. Suggesting that because of 'such and such' which I disagree with they must read 'insert newspaper'.

 

*Edit* Obviously sometimes you can be right, I read Razzle a lot and I am a sexual deviant.

[cort1977]

Usual small government libertarian BS importing their ideas from the states where they take political stupidity to an art form.

 

The irony is that Smith was not really a rabid laissez-faire type, he was clear that there is a role for government.  He wrote in the Wealth of Nations that "The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state." 

 

In other words, people need to pay their taxes to support the government that allows the free market to operate safely such as by mandating MOT tests but you won't hear that from the rabid Thatcherites at the Adam Smith Institute.

[Sigmund Fraud]

Abolish the MoT ? Hell, yeah !

 

Then we can all drive around in beauties* like this :

 

 

WCPGW ?

[big_al_granvia]

the mot can be a pain but imo it is a necessary evil, mainly to keep total heaps off the road. thing nowadays that sends modern cars to the scrappy isnt rust but goosed electrics but there is still a lot of so called classic cars that have more fiberglass in them than metal. yes welding is a pain but i would rather weld something than have it crush like cardboard in a smash

[Eddie Honda]

There's a group of knobheads known as the 'Adam Smith institute'.

 

Didn't you realise the UK is run entirely for the benefit of big businesses

No need to add more petrol to the bonfire.

 

is as vague as the Conservatives plan on leaving the EU.

How original. That simile got a Ben Card yesterday. http://autoshite.com/topic/32516-honda-civic-i-failed-to-find-a-decent-car-with-ac-for-buttons/?p=1561817

 

I know politics is banned on here but

You're going to carry on anyway?

 

Ha! I knew this would open a can of worms;

It should earn you a swift kick in the bollocks!

 

Anyway, sign the fucker and pass it on

Nah, get tae fuck. As my 2nd favourite* English teacher taught me. Never start a letter or other written piece with "I am writing" - because IT'S BLEEDING OBVIOUS THAT YOU ARE. If you weren't writing it, I WOULDN'T BE READING IT. So any correspondence I get starting with those three words gets treated with the massive contempt it deserves.

 

 

Thatcherites

 

Have a coconut for the first poster to shoe-horn Thatcher into the thread

 

 

 

The House of Commons have only been on holiday for 2 days FFS. They won't be back sitting until the 4th September. Between now and then is Silly Season and all sorts of wank and guff will be in the news because they've nowt else to report and need to fill the pages/screens with something. I don't want to hear it, nor do plenty of others. At least give it a six week break? (bet you lot can't)

 

 

* Second favourite, because whilst Mrs Sanders was a good teacher, Mrs Cooper had a fantastic rack and drove a MG Metro (so got first), which by default knocks M'coli's da into third (sorry M'coli!)

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Interestingly a car on my street has just failed the test, they're proper yokels, they'd run it with three wheels on, anyway it failed on several issues with the brakes, dense grey smoke and corrosion to the subframe mounts. Most people would fuck it off, its knackered. But some people wouldn't realise this until the brakes failed or the subframe came away on a roundabout.

 

These think tanks need to get a grip, all these guardian reading idiots, who despite several years at university or wherever have no actual life experience or knowledge of what they spout off about.

 

 

I very much doubt that the people of this particular think tank read The Guardian, given the rest of the views they espouse.  More likely to read The Telegraph or The Daily Mail...

[Lacquer Peel]

How many small businesses rely on MOT tests and car repairs? Not that these chuds give a toss about small businesses. Emissions testing by Capita.

[The Moog]

Sign the petition or don't, we are going to end up in the usual political territory.