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LABOUR SENATOR JOHN Whelan has sharply criticised the backlog in securing an NCT test.
Whelan said the “undue” delays are “causing widespread confusion and anxiety for motorists”.
The Senator added that he supported calls for “common sense” to be used regarding the new penalty points regime which could see motorists receive up to five points for not having an up-to-date NCT certificate.
“All vehicles must be safe, roadworthy and fully compliant with NCT standards. However, where law-abiding motorists do their utmost to comply with the law, they should be given every opportunity to do so and not be unfairly penalised.”
Whelan said he has been “inundated” with concerns by motorists who are “despite applying for their NCT test well in advance of the scheduled due date, are now being offered test slots as far away as March and April”.
This unforeseen scenario is making an ass of the law and may also have other far-reaching consequences in terms of insurance cover and liability.
He stated that “documented proof that you have applied for an NCT test” should be “sufficient evidence that you are compliant on an interim basis”.
“This sensible approach would also bring clarity and consistency to the discretion which individual gardaí can apply.”
RSA
A spokesperson for the Road Safety Authority (RSA) said that gardaí have been advised to take “a common sense approach to enforcement” as it at their discretion to “decide if it is appropriate to issue a fixed charge notice, particularly in cases where some time has elapsed since the last NCT expired”.
He added that the RSA took ”took steps to ensure that customers were aware of the changes to penalty points well in advance of the change”.
A significant national and local radio advertising campaign was run in early October and November advising vehicle owners to book in early for test.
The spokesperson told TheJournal.ie that the introduction of the fixed charge offence seems to be encouraging people “to abide by the law”.
The evidence so far is that people who were previously overdue their tests are now seeking tests. For instance, 12% of the tests in December were more than 6 months overdue the test. It is good news for road safety that more cars are having their roadworthiness test earlier.
In the last three months of 2014 approximately 56,000 more cars were tested than in the same period the previous year, an increase of 26%.
The spokesperson said that customers requesting usually get one “on average, within three weeks”, while retest appointments are “on average, booked within six days”.
“Additional vehicle inspectors have been deployed since the beginning of January, which will enable more owners to have their vehicles tested on time, over the peak period, than has been the case in the past.
“Customers are asked to be patient at this busy time and all will be accommodated as soon as possible,” they added.
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5 points for not having an NCT cert is an absolute joke.. It’s a money racket plain and simple.. Two points for driving up a motorway the wrong way but five for not having an NCT cert??
Do you know if you can’t get a nct test within one month you are entitled to a free test , check it out .
Link?
its on the nct charter page.. you have to be careful because if you accept the appointment after 4 weeks it nullifies the offer………….so don’t accept the offer(inform them of their charter) they will either have to give you a date within 4 weeks or a free test after…..bet you will get the date
Section 4 of the above charter.
Unfortunately it’s just spin kevin. Applied for mine last month, and they would not take a booking as there were none available within the month. Instead they took my details and contacted me this week to take my booking. So basically it will have taken two months to get a test for me but I still have to pay because they only took the official booking when it suited.
I was told that I have to go on a waiting list and that I will in time (time unknown) receive a text to tell me when a date is available. So, I can’t even get a date!
Call them up, quote their customer charter!
Actually, they say if they cannot give you a date in 10 working days from when you called them,they should give you a free appointment.Called in on 18/11/14,10 days later they gave me the date for the 17/12/14.They are doing everything to avoid giving you a free test. nct was due to expire 24/01/15.Passed and we’re good till we have to call again at least 2months in advance.Having said that,it’s ridiculous to give points for something that’s out of one’s hand:they should increase the number of testing centres before punishing the people who really want to comply.It’s expensive already,no need to burden people with unnecessary stress.
Should have called a week after first contact and let them know you know about the free test.It worked for me.
It’s a joke.
Waiting times are now currently 4 months, but you can’t get an appointment more than 90 days in advance. Ergo, you can not book an appointment in time for your existing Cert’s expiry date !!
Applus need a serious, serious kicking here.
The law needs to be amended that you can’t be prosecuted if you hold a valid appointment for an NCT.
So you will forced to drive unlawfully to the NCT centre for your test and if you have an accident there could be issues with your insurance company.
Where is the Minister for Transport?
The whole thing is just an excuse to fine motorists and collect revenue, add on points so the insurance companies have an excuse to up your policy. It should be sorted before any fines or points are allowed, pure incompetence
I bet his car doesn’t need an NCT
I booked in November as my NCT was due the 6th of January, earliest booking available was start of March so I booked that. I sent email to NCT on circa 10th dec and cc’d minister of transport & RSA asking for clarification re points and out of date cert despite having a booking. I was emailed a new booking date for the 18th of December and passed.
Would a judge convict you of a crime ? Common sense says No.
Why the issue with insurers ?
Rory, the issue with insurers is that if you have an accident & try to claim while the NCT is expired the claim may not be paid out as no NCT may suggest the car is not road worthy.
Nonsense. Check the fine print of your nct cert. It states it is not a certificate of road worthiness. So basically it is just a tax on motoring and just like motor tax it has no bearing on insurance.
And if you get points for no NCT next time you renew they will up your policy!
My sons car was stolen,the first thing they asked,have you the nct on the car.
The nct is a scam,another money racket,where’s the stats to back up less fatalities on the road?how many fatal accidents where the cars involved had no nct?
It got a few cut and shuts off the road but I totally agree,it’s a scam in its current format.
One of my friends had his car NCT’d in Northpoint. His car passed the NCT and then his engine blew when he was driving home across the M50.
Andrea the condition of your engine has no bearing on the nct unless it affects emissions.
Just as well there’s no National Road Test. You wouldn’t be able to leave your own driveway yet still got to have an NCT.
I think that was his point. His car was obviously not road worthy and yet it passed. He could have been killed and killed others because his car was a piece of crap. And yet it passed the NCT.
There should be an annual NCT for some drivers,
not for their cars….
The RSA is a completely useless quango that spends its time thinking up schemes to make money so that it can fund its lavish advertising and scare mongering to justify its existence.
The NCT is not a certificate of roadworthiness, just check out the small print. The NCT was lobbied for in Europe by the major car manufacturers to increase sales. The real irony here is that the discovery that airbags have a use by date and become dangerous, in a number of cases causing road deaths when they malfunctioned and exploded. Yet the age of the airbags in a vehicle is not an issue at present or a condition of passing rhe NCT. Why? Because the cost of replacing up to 8 airbags in your car would overnight put half the cars of europe off the road and or could ruin some car makers.
So, it’s 5 penalty points, your car seized, invalid insurance if you dont have a useless NCT cert but its ok to drive around with a potential bomb in your steering wheel that can go off, even in a minor accident and kill you.
My advice to anyone that has booked an appointment and can prove it but is prosecuted notwithstanding, call the minister for transport as a witness to explain this perversion to the courts.
Too true Jack. Especially when they can’t answer a quesion but keep shifting the question to some other expert from the RSA. A useless shower.
Just ring the nct centre and you WILL get an appointment within 4 weeks or you will get a free test. They hold a large percentage of blocks back so they can avoid giving free tests. I’ve always gotten a test within a month even though the online system says none are available often for 3 months.
That’s true emachine.
The problem is that while the guards are ‘understanding’ about the lack of an nct the insurance company won’t be if an accident occurs during the lapse
Emachine, you have been given tests within 4 weeks before, but things are different now due to the huge backlog. I called and said mine is out of date and they said they would give me a cancellation within the next 10 working days.
That was in December. I got a text to say I had been given an April date.
And I’m screwed anyway because I had taken my car abroad and then back to Ireland and therefore it hasn’t had NCT in years. It’s going to look bad and will take a lot of explaining as the whole process has been a nightmare with tax, insurance and now this.
Anyone who rings and cannot get a confirmed date then and there that is within 28 days needs to stand up for themselves. Quote their own customer charter and demand a date and insist it is free you’d be surprised what can be achieved when a free test hangs in the balance. Knowledge is power, don’t be a doormat. Nct is irrelevant to insurance. In an accident lack of nct will make no difference. I had a fender bender a few years back with no nct and it wasn’t even mentioned.
Is that true because I haven’t got my car nct’d in four years now ?
My brother was going name driver on my car and he told the insurance company that I have no nct on the car and they told him it didn’t matter .
The motorist pictured has her wheel on the wrong side, she’s not gonna pass!
A friend of mine got a new company car, he does about 50,000 miles a year, the company pays for car servicing 5 times a year. Because it’s a new car no NCT required. If you have a car over 10 year old you have to have NCT every year. The fact that you might only do 5000 miles a year, you still have to get a yearly NCT. However if your car is a classic, over 25 years old, it doesn’t apply.
30 years.
Great revenue source……FG BRINGING HARDSHIP TO YOU EVERY WHICH WAY THEY CAN!
A friend of mine had extensive correspondence with NCT about their opaque booking process and each time he tried to get an explanation he was told if you call us we will fix you up. He also copied everyone and got zero satisfaction. He had lived in many countries and has never seen a more inefficient and obtuse system. They are granted a monopoly to print money and they are abusing it big time.
1 year without nct same for tax. Car seems to be running fine I don’t see the problem ;-). Aside from that I believe my tax has been paid through various other avenues. For example the two alloy wheels I cracked due to pot holes, cracked windscreen from Chippings, broken cv joint and bent drive shaft from driving over a half covered man hole. People seem to forget with a car younger than 08 you save on tax but for those who think about it realise with cheaper tax and depreciation on a new car the cost remains the same if not higher. My car is safe I wouldn’t drive it otherwise and as for tax? The government expects me to pay a tax willingly! Ye sure. How about when Europe stop fining us for our flawed vehicle tax I might start paying. Besides the government over looked one simple way of avoiding tax without declaring a car off the road. A years tax 760. Change of ownership? Absolutely nothing. Happy motoring folks.
Tell it to the judge
I haven’t had an NCT in 3 years. Are you supposed to have one every two years or what?
Every two years when your car is between 4 and 10 years old and then it’s every year after that.
it’s not just an NCT problem every driver should know when there car is due for a test and book in time.the NCT is around a long time now so there is no excuse.another point is your car insured without a valid NCT cert i don’t think it is.so stop fcuking moaning.
They did book in time. There is an unusual backlog because the NCT decided to allow people to take their tests early and everyone went for it. So now people who need the slots can’t have them.
Vomit
I can’t even get details of an appointment. No response to emails and I will have to try the phone service next although I’ve been warned that this can be very slow.
I suppose that I should have contacted a TD before Christmas. That’s how things get done in Ireland if you contact the right TD.
Don t they backdate your test to the day it ran out, so in theory you do have a valid Nct only it’s not on display.
Margaret
Your so right in fact I know someone who had let the NCT lapse a year and when they did test it was backdated almost 14 mths and they had to do the NCT again 6 mths later again was a nightmare
Isn’t that the ultimate proof that its really a scam and a tax? How can you backdate a test by almost 14 months?
“Customers” lol
I have the answer ! Half the country needs work..the nct centres are massively behind schedule. .makes sense! Eh eh ??
Expect the government to steal my idea any moment now and create an ‘iniatiative’ for unemployed people to do an “internship” with the nct centres.
Or get some baboons from the zoo
I don’t know where all these figures are coming from, I just booked my car in and got a date of 14th Feb, 1 month exactly, and this is in the Portlaoise office which is apparently one of the worst.
Same, I’ve just rang and will be sent out a date by text in 10 days or so with a booking for something in the next 4 weeks ! Bit of scaremongering going on here me thinks
Five points for no nct thats a joke and ya cant even get a test booking its all money money money again pack of pr,,,s
Have been driving around without an NCT since June 2013. Have gone through at least 4 check points in that time. The Gardai all mentioned it but really didn’t care just said to get it sorted. Just got the car sorted this week for the test. Booked it last Monday over the phone for Deansgrange Dublin. Test date 3rd of Feb.
It’s all about the money,show me the money, your money,nct-ed to drive on icy roads,bad roads,potholed roads,pay up shut up and pay the phoney tax,
My car was takin off me by the gaurds while waitin for my nct. My car then passed the nct despite the radiator leaking, no spare wheel, one back and one front bulb missing and one broken shock. Hows that possible?
I’m in the process of getting frustrated due to a severed wire at my front fog light. I won’t pass my NCT because my front fog light (which most cars don’t have anyway) isn’t working.
The other problem I am having is my NCT isn’t up until April. I was able to book a test date online for the 7th at the earliest. That’s fine but I rang to see if I could get an earlier appointment, thus giving up the available appointment.
I was told they would call me back with an earlier test. If this fails I will be pushed to a later test date possibly past the expiry date of my current NCT.
How did you get it back to test it? Kinda Catch22 situation.
Just buy a van!!
Oh because that’s so much better. Doe every year!!!
So the same as every car 10 years plus in Ireland.
Yeah I guess so….
Third party Motor insurance is compulsory and motor insures will not void a policy for NCT omission ion relation to third party claims.
The difficulty arises in case of those insurers whose policies demand of the policyholder that the car is fully roadworthy. If there is a crash and if it established that the crash was due to unsafe condition of the vehicle and there was no NCT, the insurer could seek reimbursement of the third party claim. It is not impossible that such a reimbursement claim would succeed.
Certainly, you would want to examine your policy and consult with a lawyer before assuming that omission to have an NCT certificate never has adverse insurance implications.
How much is it for an nct, I’ve got mine tomorrow and can I ask, where does the money go , what does it support?
I got done for no NCT. I had previously sat the test two weeks earlier and had the failed cert along with a reciept from the garage to say the work was done. All I was waiting on was headlight alignment. Car was roadworthy especially at day time which is when i was caught. Guard was just argumentative so I decided to not bother explaining anything else. He never asked was it booked in, where I was coming from or going to he just had his jollies on to give out a fine. I am still deciding weather to take it to court. Does anyone ever win against this corporate machine?
Booked mine online end of September and got it done on 20th December. Good job I passed, because if I had to wait another 3 months for a retest, I would have lost the plot. I carried a printout of the booking form with me and needed to show it twice at Garda checkpoints before the test.
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