I am ashamed to say that I only encountered this topic today, as I haven't performed a test personally for a few weeks. Of course I had read the special notices & listened to the views of my testers (honest I have) but it wasn't until I went to enter the brake test figures, that it hit home, just how ridiculous this new routine is.

This subject is particularly poignant to me, because I had a major issue with an employee a couple of years ago. He was failing cars on brake imbalance, by recording their lock out figures in the "imbalance" field on the VTS.

Fortunately he only failed three cars before I noticed the unusual trend & of course I acted upon it. The four year old C Class Mercedes that he failed was a mint car & I knew something was amiss.

I pulled the Mercedes back in & proceeded to do my own brake test. He asked me what I was doing, so I told him that I had to investigate why this pristine car had failed on brake imbalance. My test results concluded a pass & I asked him to justify his test result.

"Errm I entered the lock out figures into the VTS"

I am sure you can imagine the exchange that took place. I tend to be rather overbearing when it comes to matters technical & the guy finished the test he was performing & duly walked out!

So based on the new regulations, he must now think I am a complete Cock! (Join the queue )

I feel very strongly about this development, particularly because it compromises the professionalism of the many well intentioned & intelligent MOT Nominated Testers out there, who will be forced to manipulate their results, to produce the correct result.

Testers have the opportunity to express any concerns or questions to VOSA via the testing device (the relic of a computer that they lumbered us with )

I decided to have my say....

(Please excuse the spelling mistakes )