Proposed new NCT requirements

jrar

New publication from the RSA outlining proposed changes to the NCT from 2010


http://www.rsa.ie/publication/publication/upload/NCT%20Consultation%20Paper%202009%20FINAL%20ROB200209.pdf

Stark

Looks good. Surprised most of those items weren't on the test already.

Chris_533976

Wonder if the yearly thing will get through or not?

Crazy that half these tests are only just being introduced. The reverse light, wtf?

patrickc

I personally don't agree with the yearly test, unless it's half price each,more bloody revenue raising

Carawaystick

Exhaust noise has exceeded a specified level of 99db - huh do they not mean 99dB
Is this even a road safety issue? how many minor or serious collisions have happened because the exhaust noise was too loud?

glass has a light transmission level of not less than 65%
now, I'd imagine they meant less than 65%, cos if there was more than 65% light transmission, It'd be very hard to see how that is a road safety issue.

Also reference to hand brake lever in one section and parking brake in another, surely car's with out hand brake levers should be tested also.


I wonder have the rsa data on the number of cars older than ten years which cause safety issues in the second year of their certification?

Obviously the checks for the lamps working and tyres are good and unbelievable they weren't already in the test.

L1011

Exhaust noise isn't a road safety issue per se; its an environmental issue. Same as exhaust gases, which have been in since day one.

Don't see what's wrong with the glass bit; "not less than 65%" means it has to have more than 65% light transmittance.

As goes the more than ten years bit; the extremely high fail rate - 67% at first test - of cars older than ten years suggests that more than a few of them would have degraded heavily within a year...

Stark

Carawaystick wrote: »

Exhaust noise has exceeded a specified level of 99db - huh do they not mean 99dB
Is this even a road safety issue? how many minor or serious collisions have happened because the exhaust noise was too loud?

It's a noise pollution issue. Hearing damage occurs at 90dB. 100dB is 10 times louder than 90dB due to the bell scale being logarithmic. So 99dB is pretty damn loud.

B00MSTICK

Won't people just add a silencer/put the cat back on etc. for the test then take it off again?

L1011

B00MSTICK wrote: »

Won't people just add a silencer/put the cat back on etc. for the test then take it off again?

Probably, but there will be enough people where the hassle of that just gets too annoying and they stop. Completely unscientific observation back home is that 'donegal standard' (boldface, no dashes) registration plates seem to fall off in numbers rapidly on 4+ year old cars as a result of people not being bothered to put them back on...

c-note

I think most of the proposals are good.
except for the rear reg plate lights.

"for safer cleaner motoring" is the tagline of the nct and i believe
that this is what its terms of reference should be limited to.

rear reg plate illuminators have no immediate impact environmentally or on safety. this part of the test was rightfully (imo) dropped and i see no reason to re-instate it.

i'm glad to see that tinted windows are on the way out!
its been a frustration of mine for a long time, not being able to see the driver of another vehicle.

loud exhausts are a no brainer, anyone with an amped up exhaust is just a jerk, (on the other hand it does give other drivers a warning... attention theres a jerk on the road!)

as for vehicles > 10 yrs being tested annually, this will bug me slightly as the car i drive is 1999, (maybe they'll halve the fee! )
but it is a fair proposal, commercials are tested annually already.

L1011

I would expect the rear reg plate lights are for a law enforcement reason (low flash speed cameras perhaps) more than anything else. The ones fitted to my car are perfectly operating yet you still can't read the plate at night though so it is a bit pointless!

heyjude

Firstly I'd question the motivation for these changes. I remember reading a few years ago some figures analysing the cause of road traffic accidents, it attributed over 60% to drivers, 1% to vehicle faults and the rest to other reasons such as road conditions and bad weather. The point is, if the purpose of the NCT is to improve safety, then why aren't the RSA applying their efforts to the main cause of road accidents( i.e. bad driving/drivers) rather than worrying about rear licence plate lights and noisy exhausts ?

I think its mainly a revenue generating exercise (extra car test revenue, extra test related work for garages and no doubt the government would hope it will encourage people to scrap their 10+ year old car and replace them with something newer) and a badly thought out one at that, for they reckon it would require an extra 120,000 NCT tests per year (Is the system capable of such a big ramp up in test numbers in perhaps as little as one years time ?)

Finally, its not the age of the car that determines its roadworthiness, but how much it has been driven, how its been driven and how well its been serviced and maintained. Insurance companies give discounts for low mileage drivers, this proposal assumes that their low mileage vehicles are as dangerous as that driven by a sales rep who may drive 30,000 miles a year or more.

corktina

heyjude wrote: »

The point is, if the purpose of the NCT is to improve safety, then why aren't the RSA applying their efforts to the main cause of road accidents( i.e. bad driving/drivers)

I rather think they have havent they? I seem to remember a lot of fuss about Learner Drivers last year.

Maybe the point that needs making is that the NCT wont put off the road the people who drive dangerous cars as they wont bother putting in for it anyway. ENFORCEMENT of the Law is whats required, MORE Traffic Corps doing the job properley rather than largely wasting their time checking speed and tax (this could be done by machine more efficently) How many L drivers did you see this week on their own for instance? and what about all thosae cars parked outside the pub every night? how many of their drivers are over the limit?

Davidth88

If the NCT was not ignored by a sizeable minority of drivers this would be better.

Walk around a car park near you , you will notice that approx 30% of cars that should have NCTs displayed are either not displaying , or they are out of date.

As for the NCT being about safety, how does displaying the county on the registration plate in irish a safety thing ? And yes you will fail if you don't have it.

corktina

muddled thinking isnt it. trying to cover everything in one test and yet not enforcing it . You can even tax your car with no NCT which is daft altogether,

Carawaystick

MYOB wrote: »

Don't see what's wrong with the glass bit; "not less than 65%" means it has to have more than 65% light transmittance.

..

Except that's the reason for failing - the light transmission is not less than 65% according to the rsa, not the rule to be complied with.

CoachDriver

patrickc wrote: »

I personally don't agree with the yearly test, unless it's half price each,more bloody revenue raising

Annual Testing for Vehicles over 10 years old, it should be done with 8 years. The pass rate by cars aged eight to ten years is approximately 35%, this is very low.

L1011

Carawaystick wrote: »

Except that's the reason for failing - the light transmission is not less than 65% according to the rsa, not the rule to be complied with.

I don't understand what you mean there???

Traumadoc

It will mean that there will be more encouragement to scrap cars - this is very little to do with safety. More to do with a scrappage scheme of sorts.

I am sure the SIMI would love to have yearly tests for all cars over 8 years, or even 2 years like they do in other countries.

Like the "Shaken" test in Japan - its really a way of making owning older cars prohibitively expensive and sweet FA to do with road safety

CoachDriver

Traumadoc wrote: »

its really a way of making owning older cars prohibitively expensive and sweet FA to do with road safety

It is for our safety and the safety for our children sorry, I will submit to the RSA to have the cars tested annually after 6 years.

After 2 year first time test
2-6 every 2 years
6 year and older annually

Stark

Most NCT failures cost feck all to fix so I don't see how it makes owning a car prohibitively expensive. Last car I had NCT'd cost me about €10 all in all to pass the retest. And one of the faults, a leaky valve which cost €2 to fix would definitely have been a road safety issue. If it's costing loads, then chances are the car was a death trap.

The car actually passed with dodgy suspension which I ended up having fixing regardless, so they can be pretty lax. It wasn't a case of them making a mistake either, checked the report form and it said something like "49% travel, fail at 50%".

Del2005

CoachDriver wrote: »

Annual Testing for Vehicles over 10 years old, it should be done with 8 years. The pass rate by cars aged eight to ten years is approximately 35%, this is very low.

Maybe the reason 10 year old cars fail more is because people don't want to spend money fixing it for something to fail and cost a lot to fix. When you look at the retests the number is only slightly below the failure for 2 year old cars. And any car can become dangerous on the way out of the test centre and not be caught for 2 years if it makes it that far.

L1011

I would guess that some of the high fail rate is people using the NCT to tell them what they need to get fixed for the NCT, admittedly, but that can't explain the still huge fail rate for old cars.

Traumadoc

CoachDriver wrote: »

It is for our safety and the safety for our children sorry, I will submit to the RSA to have the cars tested annually after 6 years.

After 2 year first time test
2-6 every 2 years
6 year and older annually

Why not ever 3months? - what your scientific reasoning?
If they wanted to make cars safer they would insist on speed limiters- car testing does not make make the roads safer - better driver education, enforcement of traffic laws, and better road engineering does.

GerardKeating

Davidth88 wrote: »

As for the NCT being about safety, how does displaying the county on the registration plate in irish a safety thing ? And yes you will fail if you don't have it.

You need some regulation on registration plates, otherwise some people would deliberatly get a plate with is hard to read to avoid camera etc.

And any such regulations are a waste if they are not exact...

Traumadoc

It is very important that the original owners county of residence is displayed in Irish.:rolleyes:

GerardKeating

Traumadoc wrote: »

It is very important that the original owners county of residence is displayed in Irish.:rolleyes:

No, it is important that it is standardised and people cannot vary it to suit themselves.

The standard is Irish, so Irish it is...

If there is some wriggle room in the regs, people will flaunt it, just look at drink drive rules...

hellboy99

I've three words that sums this up:

Money making racket !!

Fix the roads for a start I say :mad:

L1011

Traumadoc wrote: »

Why not ever 3months? - what your scientific reasoning?
If they wanted to make cars safer they would insist on speed limiters- car testing does not make make the roads safer - better driver education, enforcement of traffic laws, and better road engineering does.

speed limited vehicles are far more dangerous than non speed limited vehicles due to an abject inability to drive out of danger so no, they would never, ever insist on speed limiters.

hellboy99

RSA Launches Consultation on New Tests for NCT

The RSA has launched a consultation paper, today Monday 23rd February 2009, seeking the views of car owners and those involved in the motor trade on proposals to add new test items to the National Car Test in early 2010. The consultation also considers the introduction of annual testing for cars which are over 10 years old. The RSA believes that the new test items will improve the safety of vehicles on our roads and assist in achieving the main objective of the Governments Road Safety Strategy to bring Ireland's road safety record into line with "best practice" countries throughout the World. The proposed changes to the NCT are:

Clarity of windscreen and front side windows
Excessively tinted windscreens or front side windows present a significant safety hazard for drivers and their occupants. It is proposed that the glass in the windscreen and front side windows will be required to have a light transmission level of not less than 65% in order to pass the test.
Rear fog lamp
Rear fog lamps enhance the visibility of a car in foggy conditions by indicating the vehicle's position and direction of travel to other road users. The rear fog lamp, where fitted, will be checked to ensure that when in use it provides a red light which is clearly visible.
Reverse lamp
The reverse lamp of a vehicle provides illumination to the rear when backing up, and warns nearby drivers and pedestrians of a vehicle's backward motion. The reverse lamp, where fitted, will be checked to ensure that when in use it provides a white light which is clearly visible.
Tyres
Car tyres are the only point of contact between a vehicle and the road. The standards to which tyres are designed and built, is critical to ensuring adequate grip is maintained with the road surface. An "E" or “e” mark indicates that the tyre is certified to comply with international regulations. It is proposed that the vehicle will fail if an E or e mark is not visible.
Malfunction indicators for Airbags, Electronic Stability Control (ESC) systems and Electronic Braking Systems (EBS) / Anti-Lock Brake system (ABS).
Today’s cars are fitted with a number of warning lamps on a dashboard that let the driver know if certain critical safety, performance and environmental features are not working properly. They are important safety features and it is in the interest of the driver and road safety that all safety systems in the vehicle are in full working order. Vehicles will be checked to ensure that, where fitted, the malfunction indicators for Airbags, Electronic Stability Control (ESC) systems and Electronic Braking Systems (EBS) / Anti-Lock Brake system (ABS) are in correct working order. The vehicle will fail if a malfunction indicator is not working or indicates a defect in the system.
Rear registration plate lamp
Rear registration plate lamps provide essential illumination to the registration plate of a vehicle once parking lights are activated.
Vehicle exhaust noise
The nuisance caused by excessive noise from vehicle exhausts is regularly the subject of comments and complaints received by the RSA. A new test is proposed at NCT whereby sound levels will be checked in order to ensure acceptable sound levels are not exceeded.
Annual testing of vehicles over 10 years old
At present two thirds of cars aged 10 years and older presented for a test do not pass first time. It is proposed that annual testing be introduced for cars ten years and older. Cars over 30 years old would continue to be exempt for the moment.
The introduction of the new test items will have no implications for test fees. The owners of vehicles over 10 years old, however, would be required to bear the cost of an annual test.


Site: http://www.rsa.ie/NEWS/News/NCT_Consultation.html

Document: http://www.rsa.ie/NEWS/upload/File/NCT%20Consultation%20Paper%202009.pdf

The RSA would greatly appreciate the views of the public. Responses may be submitted up to 27th March to:
National Car Test Consultation
Road Safety Authority
Moy Valley Business Park
Primrose Hill
Ballina
Co. Mayo
or by email to nctconsultation@rsa.ie

On completion of this consultation process the RSA will be making proposals to the Department of Transport regarding the items to be included in the National Car Test from 2010.

Traumadoc

MYOB wrote: »

speed limited vehicles are far more dangerous than non speed limited vehicles due to an abject inability to drive out of danger so no, they would never, ever insist on speed limiters.

So a car capable of 140 mph is safer than a car limited to 90mph?:rolleyes:


AFAIK all HGVs and coaches have speed limiters.



Why not limit cars to say 90mph?