[dsego]

> MOTs (annual vehicle safety tests) happen at any local garage.

Oh, I think we should have that in Croatia, since I'm doing yearly car service at my dealership and than still need to take my car to our national inspection station to get the car certificate renewed. Not sure why can't they organize a system were certified car garages can also inspect the vehicle and notify the Center for Vehicles. Maybe that would allow for more cheating but it's not like inspection stations employees are currently immune to taking a small bribe to overlook minor issues during the inspection.

[lmz]

The incentives are very different - private garages would be very incentivized to find nothing wrong with your car and business would gravitate to those with the least checks. The government stations would not have that incentive (actually maybe incentivized the other way - to make up problems that can be waved away with money, depending on how corrupt things are there)

[dendodge]

I'd have thought the private garages would also be incentivised to find problems - that they can then offer to fix for an additional fee.

As it is, I think most garages that offer MOTs in the UK are fair and honest, as the test is relatively strictly regulated, but I'm sure people do get ripped off.

[rocqua]

The Netherlands has private garages do the yearly recertification inspection (APK here). There was a recent rise in 'remote inspections' where the garages had figured out tricks to avoid spot checks. This involved tricks like 'file the inspection very close before 17:00' or 'file the inspection result right before an actual true inspection' because apparently spot checks look at the last inspection.

They noticed the tricks as patterns, and are handling it. My point is, there is an incentive for private garages to do fraud here.