How to find a faulty vehicle
When a car manufacturer seeks to tell vehicle owners that there is a defect affecting a particular model, it may use the DVLA database to send out letters to possibly thousands and thousands of relevant car owners.
If the information concerns a safety defect, then it is also publicly available on the website of the Vehicle & Operator Services Agency, an executive agency of the Department for Transport.
But what about those cases where the defect is judged not to be a safety risk? VOSA has turned down a freedom of information requests for details of such 'non-safety recalls'. Its policy is not to make the information generally public, arguing that people 'might simply form an incorrect judgment about the competence of a manufacturer to build a fault-free vehicle'.
The Information Commissoner has today disagreed, ruling that if the information about a defect is already available to potentially thousands of vehicle keepers then it cannot be considered confidential. The decision also states that the way to stop the public forming an incorrect view of manufacturers' reliability is to provide an appropriate explanation of the information.
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So what is up with VOSA? Why do they take the manufacturer's side all the time? They work for the public, don't they?
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What are you smoking, beardie?
Of course they don't work for the public, they're a government agency.
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To calm any worries about possible safety issues in the automotive industry being hidden, I can assure you that this is not the case. As an employe of a very large German automotive company, working within the compliance section, we are obligated to ensure that any 'defect' deemed not 'urgent' will be fixed during the vehicles next scheduled service.
I would also point out that no automotive company would allow consumers to drive vehicles that are unsafe, do not mix up the reluctance of the DVLA to release information with how automotive companies would respond, the company I work for would be happy to provide any of it's vehicle owners the list of current/resolved 'defects' that the owners particular vehicle may have/had.
Finally, automotive companies are obliged by EU and National law to furnish the respective transport and safety departments of member countries with any known 'defects' for any of the companies range of automotives.
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#3
"no automotive company would allow consumers to drive vehicles that are unsafe".
Really. Manufacturers have, even in recent years denied culpability for design or manufacturing faults, some of which constituted serious safety issues. Further back I'd urge you to look up the history of the Ford Pinto for example. Ford cynically allowed an unsafe product to be sold. Ralph Nader and others worked very hard to make vehicles safe, and met great opposition from the industry.
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