The government agency is investigating the misuse of the free text advisory feature
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has apologised after a number of offensive comments from MOT records were circulated on social media.
One MOT certificate from 2019 featured insulting comments about the owner of a Land Rover Freelander. Since being shared by @HSV_Valiant, the tweet has been viewed 1.3 million times, receiving around 450 retweets and almost 5500 likes.
One Twitter user responded with a link to a Facebook post with around 70 other examples of inappropriate MOT advisories.
The comments include:
- Mini: ‘Beautiful owner’
- Yamaha YBR125: ‘Owner overweight’
- Volkswagen Transporter: ’Owner is grumpy’
- Peugeot 106: ’Owner has issues’
- TVR Cerbera: ’Owner acts posh!!’
- Land Rover Discovery: ’Owner is idiot’ and ‘car is horrible colour’
- BMW M3: ’Owner needs a haircut’
- Honda Civic: ’Owner looks like SuBo’
- Volkswagen Golf: ’Number of Wotsits in glovebox below requirements’
In response, a DVSA spokesperson told Garage Wire: “DVSA has removed a number of offensive comments from MOT records which were captured at the time of the original test for certain vehicles.
”We apologise for any offence caused to the vehicle owners and members of the public viewing MOT records through the Check MOT History service.
“We are investigating the misuse of the free text advisory feature and our enforcement teams will follow up with any testers or garages who we find to be adding content unrelated to the vehicle roadworthiness and/or recording advisory defects which do not accurately reflect the condition of the vehicle at the time of the MOT test.”
The DVSA went on to tell us that of the 42 million MOT tests carried out annually, the vast majority are conducted to the appropriate standard. It recognises that the majority of testers conduct themselves in a professional manner.
It also said that while it is possible to record some advisory items – which do not result in a test failure but should be monitored or fixed in the future – MOT testers should only use free text for instances where there is no pre-defined advisory category.
The inappropriate advisory notes on the Freelander’s certificate have since been removed.
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