Reply To: Graham Stoakes opinion: Why blanket industry licensing isn't the answer

[DS Vickers AAE MIMI]

I agree with what you say but as you know my views are that rather than starting regulating with F gas which is an important environmental issue, the focus should have been put into safety critical systems. How hard would it actually be to design and implement a system whereby MOT repairs can only be carried out by competent repairers? It could be a requirement that when a vehicle is presented for retest a certificate of competence (available online as a template) is provided before retesting the vehicle? Most of us testers deal with a fairly regular group of repairers in the main and as such we could have their certificates of competence on portfolio. This would also raise customer awareness when returning their car and being asked for a certificate of competence as most people believe anyone who runs a garage is qualified and licensed. The infrastructure already exists and deals mainly with safety critical systems and whilst being a bit of a pain for us testers, would hopefully raise standards and shift responsibility to some degree for vehicles that we’ve retested that were repaired well enough to pass at the time of retest but later fail on the road.