It’s easy to claim that news is nothing more than scaremongering; you can then push it away as irrelevant to enforce your viewpoint on others and drive a campaign against that news to enforce your own agenda. Believe us when we say this happens. So often on forums we hear the voices of those who wish to knock ACE for their own reasons.
ACE is well aware that its articles are not always good news. It’s common to see other forums and websites feeding off articles we have presented and readers of those concluding that it’s scaremongering. The nature of the Internet is one where answers are demanded instantaneously, when readers don’t get them, they often wrongly conclude conspiracy and scaremongering.
But let’s wind the clock back a bit:
If you look back at the history of modified cars, you’ll find that what people once dismissed as scaremongering, is now actually regulation and law. ACE believe this is yet another point in time where action is needed and the news should not be ignored, due to the pressure of others who wish it all kept quiet.
We are one of the few states in Europe that have a system to allow the certification of modified cars. We in the UK only have this because of the efforts of the Street Rod Action Group and Kit Car builders back in 1976, when all modifying would have been outlawed by the “proposal” for Type Approval regulations. (Sound familiar?)
Letters were sent to politicians and signatures collected on petitions to make them aware that the Proposed National Type Approval Regulations, which included a crash test, would outlaw vehicle modification overnight.
The sheer force of input from vehicle owners persuaded the DfT to arrange a postponement in the regulations and provided an exemption for “one-off” builds that were under construction (started prior to 1st October 1978), so they could be finished and registered prior to the introduction of the regulations, (April 1st 1979) the date the new regulations would become Law.
It set a precedent that displays that the DfT can listen to people, understand their needs and change the system to accommodate those in need. Had the DfT not done this, literally thousands of vehicles would have been deemed illegal overnight and penalized retrospectively.
ACE will return to this subject later.
That campaign was the driving force behind Consultations that created SVA (Single Vehicle Approval) in use by April 1998. SVA has recently changed to BIVA to comply with the latest Type Approval specifications EUWVTA (European Union Whole Vehicle Type Approval). The SVA and now BIVA, allowed people to carry on building modified cars to prescribed standards. This is the only way around type approval for single build vehicles.
The biggest flaw with the entire thing however, is that the regulations regarding these standards have not been made widely known, so most people have since been working outside those standards in blissful ignorance.
An MoT primarily tests a cars safety, based upon the detail of the V5C, it does not test the legitimacy of the identity, as listed on the V5C, other than to confirm the VIN plate is what is on the V5C. You can therefore MoT, TAX and insure a vehicle based upon that V5C, but in truth it could be illegal. The 8-point system for cars has been in place for nearly three decades. Once you are outside that system you lose your right to registration and by law, the only way to get back on the road is via the BIVA. (BIVA being the latest version of the test).
ACE estimate that tens of thousands of vehicles could fall into this category, a very worrying situation where all these cars have been deemed safe by MoT, but potentially illegal because of a misunderstood system.
Scaremongering today.
Let’s now fast forward to 2012; what we see today is a near mirror image of some of the arguments that were fought against in 1976. We see the “Type Approval” dreams of large vehicle manufacturers, who wish nothing more than protectionism appearing again. All of this hidden by the mantra of EU Harmonisation, at all costs.
Right now the present EU Proposal, spoken about in Armageddon takes us right back to where we were in the late 1970’s, where the threat of your ability and right to modify a car is curtailed and made illegal by legislation designed – in part – to protect large manufacturers.
Scaremongering? No, most definitely not. We are just highlighting the risks you have to accept when undertaking a modification to your car in the light of a EU proposal that is so draconian in its present form, it would wipe out Billions of pounds of industry, make tens of thousands of cars illegal and put thousands of jobs at risk in a single stroke.
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