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MPs' committee slams YI over emissions

11th May 2000, Page 6
11th May 2000
Page 6
Page 6, 11th May 2000 — MPs' committee slams YI over emissions
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• The Vehicle Inspectorate has come under fire from watchdog MPs over its record on emissions testing. The all-party House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, which has published its report into vehicle emissions testing, has highlighted a number of areas where the VI needs to improve its performance.

The committee pointed out that the VI has failed to publicise and follow up on information gleaned from the Smoky Vehicle Hotline, which was set up to encourage the public to report polluting vehicles.

The VI and the Department of Transport will now consider the committee's suggestion that operators should be required to display the hotline number on the back of their vehicles.

The committee also recommended that the VI should crack down on operators of HGVs which are repeatedly reported to the hotline.

Giving evidence to the com

mittee, VI chief executive Maurice Newey said that nearly every HGV is now tested using a smoke meter instead of the traditional visual test.

This followed a damning report from the National Audit Office last year which revealed that 25% of emissions tests are only visual—the results of these tests depend on how hard the tester presses the accelerator pedal.

The VI expects to have new diesel testing equipment in all of its testing stations by the end of this year. Other recommendations include: • Improving targeting at roadside checks by gathering better information on the types and ages of the worst polluting vehicles; • Letting the Vi use defective vehicles to identify sub-standard annual test stations—at present it must use legal vehicles for these checks: • Tackling regional variations in failure rates at roadside tests.


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