Just been to a mot seminar in Guildford with vosa, where i put the question to them "where do vosa stand on the proposed 4-4-2 , bearing in mind that vosa's stated aim is; to improve road safety and that the current international forum on vehicle testing has a stated aim to reduce deaths on european roads by half by 2010?"
Their repsonse " vosa does not have an opinion"!!!!!
As a goverment employee they can only present the facts to them but not offer a conclusion.Typical i guess of civil servants.........
While the gentleman im sure was on our side, he could only say that we were the ones who needed to stand up and shout, they could not help only show the facts of failures etc....computer info that should support our case. However what concerned me was there were about 100 testers plus at the meeting and after my question no one else raised any protest! or followed it up!The forum continued with questions about computerisation etc.Now baring in mind this is their livelihood we are talking about, people there seemed very complacent, i expected a mass protest to vosa, of disgust etc. Come on guys if you dont shift yourselves and stop leaving this to someone else, it will be too late, and we all in the trade will be hit not just testers and mot stations. we need everyone in the trade, suppliers, manufactures, diagnostic technicinas et al, cos you are all going to lose out, regardless of whther you test or not. This 4-2-2 sends a message out that cars need less maintanence in this day and age. So drivers will believe in less serviceing etc.
The vosa man did encourage us to lobby your MP, gordon Brown and particulay the DTI who are charged with investigating this in april ( check their website DTI.gov )
e mail this man ...jonathan.drea@dft.gsi.gov.uk
He is dealing with the legisalative aspects of the mot. His words to me were that " no decision has been reached yet on 4-2-2 until we have had an oppurtunity to fully consider all the responses to the consultation later in the year"
Can i urge every one to:
1. Write, email or visit your mp
( lets make every mp in britain aware of this,most will support the safety/envoirment issue
and they have to write to the ministers involved DTI)for arespones on your behalf.Autotalk must surely have one person by now in each constituencey!)
2. Same to the DTI Dr S Ladyamn at DTI is secretary of state.

3. e mail johnathan Drea at the DTI as above email address. He clearly has some major influence here.
4. encourage as many people as you can to do likewise.
5. Gordon Brown who is trying for political capital by pushing this. let him know.
If one person dies as a result of reduced car safety by 4-2-2, is the £450 million saving to motorists he claims ,is that now the price worth paying for that one life?