Will I pass my MOT with...

I wouldnt fail a car with any kind of flag on the plate as long as the spacings font etc was ok thats good enough for me. At the end of the day what is a plate for? identifying the car, can it be read by anpr with a flag? yes. does it hamper your ability to read it from the minimum legal distance? no. Sod what VOSA say, use a bit of common sense!
 
Your post was pointless and devoid of useful information.

Don't bother next time (this could apply to half of motors to be frank)

I can type any old nonsense really.

If you're that sensitive to what you class as text "devoid of useful information" maybe the Internet really isn't the place for you.

MrLOL said:
technically speaking the MOT tester has nothing to do with it

If it's a case of the tester missing or turning a blind eye to illegal spacing then I would say the tester has everything to do with it. They're not robots.
 
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I wouldnt fail a car with any kind of flag on the plate as long as the spacings font etc was ok thats good enough for me. At the end of the day what is a plate for? identifying the car, can it be read by anpr with a flag? yes. does it hamper your ability to read it from the minimum legal distance? no. Sod what VOSA say, use a bit of common sense!

Are you actually an MOT tester?
Because if so, that is hardly the attitude and one that would get your license to do MOTs revoked.

There are a strict set of rules of what is and isn't allowed.
If a vehicle is displaying something that isn't allowed then it's a failure and I would expect any good MOT tester to do just that - fail it.

No being "petty" about it.
There has to be a line and once crossed (the rules) then it has to become a failure.
Bothing should be open to a personal judegement - that way nobody is discriminated against.
 
I checked the MOT comp this afternoon and there's actually nothing at all mentioned with regards to any sort of flag or otherwise on your numberplate, it's also not an MOT REQUIREMENT to have the BS number. Something else I never actually realised, Carbon Fibre effect letters ARE legal! As is 3D lettering as long as the font is substantially similar.
Infact the way its worded you can basically please yourself what you have on your numberplate outside the legal margins.
 
Are you actually an MOT tester?
Because if so, that is hardly the attitude and one that would get your license to do MOTs revoked.

Yes.
This all comes back to the common sense.
Say someone presented a vehicle with a toebar ball fitted that partially obscured the numberplate. Now thats a fail. So he'd have to take the ball off, get his pass ticket, then he'd just put it back on again.
I know they are going to do this, so for the sake of common sense, ignore the fact that the ball is fitted.
You may say "wrong" and technically you are right, but this was an example given to me by a VOSA commisioner of when the rules can be bent a little.
Your right, we aren't robots, we can make judgement calls. Many Reasons For Refusal aren't set in stone and it's up to the individual testers to make a decision. The MOT Guide is just that, a guide, not everything is black and white.
 
I can type any old nonsense really.

If you're that sensitive to what you class as text "devoid of useful information" maybe the Internet really isn't the place for you.

Yes, we've already noticed that you do.

I'm not sensative to that as such, however it was devoid of useful information. It was as if the conversation that took place before you posted - didn't actually happen or you hadn't bothered to read any of it.

Take your pick.
 
Yes, we've already noticed that you do.

I'm not sensative to that as such, however it was devoid of useful information. It was as if the conversation that took place before you posted - didn't actually happen or you hadn't bothered to read any of it.

Take your pick.

Yes, there were a couple of people who mentioned failures due to illegal spacing.

I have owned a car with illegal spacing on the rear plate which went through the MOT without any mention of it.

Which, since the link posted by Fox says rather specifically that there has to be 33 mm between groups and not 11 as you would find if all the letters formed one word, and along with other people's testimonies that they've passed MOTs with illegally spaced plates, would lead me to conclude that it's down to who does the test and whether they notice/care - a shocking conclusion which apparently made someone on the Internet rather upset because he knows better than several people's real life experiences.

Contrary to what you think I didn't just click on a random thread, scroll to the bottom of the page, and mash the keyboard with my face.

Also, for someone so anal, your spelling is pretty rubbish.
 
Halfords sell Union Jack flag number plates. I noticed the sheets on the shelf when I was getting some Euro GB plates made up couple of month ago.
 
I checked the MOT comp this afternoon and there's actually nothing at all mentioned with regards to any sort of flag or otherwise on your numberplate, it's also not an MOT REQUIREMENT to have the BS number. Something else I never actually realised, Carbon Fibre effect letters ARE legal! As is 3D lettering as long as the font is substantially similar.
Infact the way its worded you can basically please yourself what you have on your numberplate outside the legal margins.

you appear to be correct.

The fact you will fail your MOT for not displaying the BSAU marking appears to be a complete myth

http://www.dft.gov.uk/vosa/repository/CONT109727.pdf

reglardless though, that pdf indicates that although you will pass the MOT, you are still breaking the law by displaying a plate that does not meet the Regulations i posted above.
 
Yes, there were a couple of people who mentioned failures due to illegal spacing.

I have owned a car with illegal spacing on the rear plate which went through the MOT without any mention of it.

Which, since the link posted by Fox says rather specifically that there has to be 33 mm between groups and not 11 as you would find if all the letters formed one word, and along with other people's testimonies that they've passed MOTs with illegally spaced plates, would lead me to conclude that it's down to who does the test and whether they notice/care - a shocking conclusion which apparently made someone on the Internet rather upset because he knows better than several people's real life experiences.


One person mentioned it - spacing - before you, TS7, and that also had very little to do with the topic at hand and neither was it in response to, well, anything.

I couldn't care if you have had a car pass that had a horses **** and balls instead of a number plates, your assertion that 'its down to the garage' is just completely untrue and now your doing an Irish jig to get out of being pulled up about it.

Had you said, it depends if they notice or not - well that’s entirely different.

But nae, you want to start arguments because you cannot join into conversation properly or accurately describe in English what you mean.

It clearly down to the law.

What the tester does, has done with you, wants to do with you, thinks about doing every night etc has no relation to what the law is and how he is required to do as such.

Neither am I the only person to pick your poor phrasing:

technically speaking the MOT tester has nothing to do with it

the rules are clearly laid out in legislation. There is no grey, just black or white with the law, as it says "anything other than this isnt permitted" basically.

So **** off in other words.
 
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Charming language....

, your assertion that 'its down to the garage' is just completely untrue and now your doing an Irish jig to get out of being pulled up about it.

Had you said, it depends if they notice or not - well that’s entirely different.

No it isn't. You take it to one garage, they notice, you fail. You take it to another, you get someone like therealscot who turns a blind eye to various things in the name of common sense, you pass. You take it somewhere else and they don't even check. You pass.

Thus, it depends on the garage.

But nae, you want to start arguments because you cannot join into conversation properly or accurately describe in English what you mean.

No, you went off at me because apparently you are the arbiter of OCUK forum thread reply relevance standards, and I didn't fit some regulation of yours for relevance of information ON A FORUM THREAD, ON THE INTERNET (Ever been to the Internet? By your rage at someone not reading through an entire thread before posting, I'd be surprised if the answer was yes) where you have demonstrated that despite not being able to read or put a rudimentary sentence together yourself, you demand 100% relevance from all other posters and start swearing and raging when they dare to reply.

You have also told us that half the people in this forum besides me are also not up to your high standards. Meanwhile of course you are unable to type your way through some fairly basic words - apparently despite this you think it is appropriate to deride the English skills of others.

It clearly down to the law.

Jesus. Read. Whether or not spacings/badges are legal or illegal was never disputed by me. We can all clearly see on the government website link provided on page 1, what the rules are.

However, despite having an illegal plate on the rear of my car, it still passed an MOT.

Had I taken it somewhere else it could well have failed.

I will reiterate that MOT testers are not robots. They get tired, they have their own opinions (which is clear in this thread also), they miss things, they get lazy, they work under pressure. It has almost everything to do with who does your test. There is no magical android (with standards as high as yours) that notices 100% of major and minor illegal things on every single car that goes through their garage.

Is that really so hard for you to grasp?


What the tester does, has done with you, wants to do with you, thinks about doing every night etc has no relation to what the law is and how he is required to do as such.

Hmmm, the above part just looks devoid of useful information to me.
 
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It's Mike right? Look, I don't care that much. Something like 4 people in this thread will ever meet me outside of this forum.


Edit:
Also; you let me off with a friendly comical warning before. Am I in trouble now? Get a life.

Wow, someone didn't like being wrong. :D
 
Cheers for all the discussion over this guys :p

I think it's fair to say I should be safe... Getting the car serviced on Thursday before the MOT too, so I'll ask the guys there what they say, as they do MOT's there too.
 
Are you actually an MOT tester?
Because if so, that is hardly the attitude and one that would get your license to do MOTs revoked.

There are a strict set of rules of what is and isn't allowed.
If a vehicle is displaying something that isn't allowed then it's a failure and I would expect any good MOT tester to do just that - fail it.

No being "petty" about it.
There has to be a line and once crossed (the rules) then it has to become a failure.
Bothing should be open to a personal judegement - that way nobody is discriminated against.

Can I ask you a genuine question? What is it about illegal number plates that you particularly dislike? You seem to have a massive chip on your shoulder about them. Everytime there's a thread about somebody not having a BSAU mark or a union jack marking you're always there, telling the story about how you know loads of people that have failed for a missing BSAU and generally getting on your high horse, yet as has been demonstrated, MOT testers generally don't care - not even main dealers.

I personally know of many people with very illegal number plates that have never been picked up on them. I can't actually think of a single one who has failed their MOT due to their plate. My own brother has the number plate on his RR Sport arranged to say "IAN P" in the middle in a very illegal manner yet despite being in his 20s, driving a huge pimp black Range Rover for 50k miles per year, he's never been questioned about it. The Aston Martin dealer that he takes it to have never said a word nor have the police.

I also have a friend that is an MOT tester and just like realscot, he wouldn't dream of failing a car if it had a dodgy flag or missing BSAU, as long as the font was correct and spacing wasn't too silly then he'd pass it. If he didn't all that would happen would be that the owner would go home, get a proper plate made up, swap it for the re-MOT and then change back as soon as he had the MOT cert in his hand. We all know this is what happens.
He would however not hesitate to fail a car on worn tyres, dodgy brakes, leaking shocks etc as they're vital to the safety of the car.
 
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