Future of transport regulatory review: modernising vehicle standards . Government consultation.

[Trevor Little (Trevturtle) - Treasurer]

Here

 

 

 

[Blatman]

My takeaway from that is this:

Quote

This will enable us to address existing gaps in the legislation, ensuring cleaner and safer vehicles. 

 

If this is the intention then it looks like it's aimed at things like ad-blue defeat, emissions defeat and other tools or software where the intetnion is to get around emissions or service life or other potentially critical safety or environmental systems.

It looks like they want to make it an offence not just to use one of these devices or "black-box" defeats, but to supply one and advertise to supply one will now also be an offence. For the most part I see nothing wrong with this. There are lots of laws where buying or owning xyz is not an offence but using xyz is. These laws never made sense to me because the user had to be caught "in flagrante delicto", so to speak... But here where defeat of these devices can do real harm it seems reasonable they are examined and dumb ones weeded out.

 

Then there is the narrative that all new cars will be fitted with a "black box flight recorder" that can have it's data downloaded at any time. I'm reasonably sure lots and lots of new cars have this capability already, especially those with a SIM card buried in the ECU or the entertainment system that allows the user to receive (for example) BMW Assist (there are others) at the touch of a button.

For those of us who might seek to limit "them" from having oversight into our driving habits/location/speed/what colour driving gloves one wears... we might want to disable this in some way. And further down the line where road pricing might be the goal of having the vehicle report it's location, again defeating this capability might be seen as a worthwhile goal. I imagine that because we are talking about data regarding our private and personal journeys there would also need to be some GDPR jiggery pokery to allow for at least some of this consultation to become law so I'd keep a look out on that piece of (massively misunderstood) legislation as well. I mean who wants to be caught by their car when they're visiting the wifes sister?  

I think I'm going to buy some shares in Uber...

 

 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

And I'm keeping my old 2007 diesel X-Type for as long as I can. It's non-ULEZ compliant so I have to use my even older Z3 which is ULEZ compliant if I want to venture into the N/S Circular. God forbid... Oh, wait, the Wing Yip Chinese supermarket is inside... 

[jeff oakley]

You need to look over in the States as to what is happening there to see where this is going. With the world now all being forced daily to read stories of climate doom etc the Environmental Protection Agency have started flexing their muscles.

 

They have already started fining companies who are supplying chips and modifications to end users regardless of where they are used. It has led to the situation where unless a car is designed for track they can effectively say any modification is illegal to sell to any car owner. 

 

Over there SEMA is on the case and trying to fight the use of EPA laws to force companies to stop offering upgrades of any sort but they are up against massive lobby groups well funded who have a lot of say.

 

Here we will all have to keep an eye out for where this goes as it will be highjacked by the environmental lobby. At the moment we have a lot of flexibility in the UK to produce home modified cars and that will stay for long enough for me, but at stake is multi million pound industry which does little harm overall but that will not stop some who hate cars and our freedoms to build and use them.

 

Blatman is correct that many facilities to spy on a road user exists, all the cars which automatically alert the authorities in an accident are capable of being tracked for example, sold as safety devices which they are but with bells for long term plans. After accidents many cars can have their ECU interrogated already.

 

As for MOTCO's comment he is correct. It is farcical that I have a staff member who had a perfectly good low emission car, but not low enough. He has bought a Hillman Minx, No MOT, No Road tax, so he can get to work with no road charge. Yes he will be in a minority but pricing people off the road onto public transport is what some hope for and many will find a way around it