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Caught with decats?


richie19942

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Dont know if this is in the right section and if its not i apologise but,

 

What is the penalty for getting caught by VOSA/Police with decats? I've heard 14 days notice to change but ive also heard a £1k on the spot fine can anyone clarify this? Torn between sports cats or decats but decats are obviously a lot cheaper.

 

Cheers.

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I believe its difficult to be caught at the roadside by either, and some decats look like cats, so you'd have to probe them to know. Even then a HFC will fail emissions if they're cold. Not sure about penalty though. 

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2 hours ago, ZMANALEX said:

It is actually 1k on the spot fine per cat.

Not quite.*

 

There is no law that says you must run cats, and as such there's no law stopping you from running decats. However, under the C&U Regs 1986 S61 Linky:



(6) No person shall use, or cause or permit to be used, on a road a motor vehicle to which item 3 of the Table applies unless it is so maintained that the means specified in column 3 of that item are in good working order.

...Vehicles first used on or after 1st October 1982 and propelled by a spark ignition engine.  -  The vehicle shall comply at the time of its first use with Community Directive 78/665 or 83/351 or ECE Regulation 15.03 or 15.04.


...or in plain English, if you make your car produce worse emissions than as it comes out of the factory you can be prosecuted, so this also applies to hi-flow cats as well. The EU Regs mentioned refer directly to the emissions of the vehicle, which is why the statute simply puts those rather than actually give us the detail. It's exactly this kind of stuff that's going to be a nightmare to de-tangle from when we Brexit, so now you can see why it's going to be many, many years before we take back control etc. ;) Interestingly the text reads "or permit to be used", so if you let your missus drive your car with hi-flow cats on then you can both be charged.

However, back in the real world this is never ever ever going to happen. Ever. If you get stopped and charged under this precise law, I'll pay the fine for you. Realistically if you've got no cats then your car will be antisocially loud (for the most part), so they'll simply S59 you instead which requires no proof and has no right of appeal. Far less paperwork than calling the DVSA (VOSA) out to actually carry out a proper test on the vehicle, which would be required for conviction as otherwise it's not beyond reasonable doubt, and unless you strike really unlucky and happen to get stopped on a random DVSA test (again super unlikely as they go after commercial vehicles 99.9% of the time) it's not going to happen. With fewer resources these days it's even LESS likely to ever happen.

In short: Fit and forget, just don't drive like a knob. But that applies all the time anyway.

 

*These laws are for England & Wales, I would imagine there's not much difference in Scotland but alas that's more difficult to find. Happy to be corrected if you can show me the proof.

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There's vosa and police checkpoints about once a month local to me and they pull in anyone who takes their fancy. I've not been pulled yet (touches massive piece of wood) so I'm not sure if they would check emissions but I guess they would. Saying all that though I've had decats on every car I've owned for the past 12 years 

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It takes about 5 mins to check them on mot. Random checks are mainly to run plates for T&T. And like Dan says they prefer commercial vehicles...and uninsured Polish registered cars from the derby area. 

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9 hours ago, Ekona said:


However, back in the real world this is never ever ever going to happen. Ever. If you get stopped and charged under this precise law, I'll pay the fine for you.

 

 

Nice bit of information, hopefully the same in Scotland but there's always something :yuck: Hold you to this part though ^ ;)

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9 hours ago, The Chubby Ninja said:

There's vosa and police checkpoints about once a month local to me and they pull in anyone who takes their fancy. I've not been pulled yet (touches massive piece of wood) so I'm not sure if they would check emissions but I guess they would.

VOSA no longer exist, they're the DVLA now.

 

They don't check emissions on a general check, we get a lot of these setup around the airport and I've been pulled a couple of times. They're more interested in overweight vehicles or unsafe loads or if the vehicle is clearly an utter shed :lol: You'd have to be caught by a specific emissions testing checkpoint, which I'm guessing you'll only find in London as they have the LEZ there. Even then, that only applies to commercial vehicles anyway!

 

Nah, safe to say no-one will ever get caught by these things, not in these days of austerity.

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You did, but I'm 99.99% sure that's a DVSA station now.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/vehicle-and-operator-services-agency

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/driver-and-vehicle-standards-agency/about/access-and-opening

 

Note the first two addresses are the Scottish branches, and are listed as DVSA. VOSA and DSA merged in '14 to create the DVSA. That said, if you fancy walking across the road and confirming that they're still using the VOSA name in Aberdeen I'll be more than happy to retract my statement. I'm literally only going on every bit of info on the official government websites for this, as I can't find any evidence that says VOSA still exist in Scotland at all.

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