The financial doom and gloom of the last couple years is having an unforeseen effect on motoring as more write-off vehicles head back to the road in order to satisfy drivers need for cheaper wheels.
According to figures issued by the DVLA, 2009 saw in excess of 104,000 previously written off vehicles being allowed back on to the roads of the country after they passed safety checks.
This is an increase of nearly 10,000 vehicles on the previous year’s figures. Insurance companies will often abandon a vehicle rather than pay for costly repairs at main agents following a bad smash, these vehicles are termed write-offs.
These write-offs fall into different sections with category A and category B considered too seriously damaged to ever return to the road. However write-offs that fall into category C may be repaired, inspected, and then allowed back onto the road, however the DVLA will then stamp the V5 log-book with the words “previously damaged or repaired” denoting that the vehicle had previously been written off and had since been repaired, and passed a Vehicle Identification Check (VIC).
However perhaps the biggest problem for car buyers are write-offs that fall into category D, this is the lowest category of write-off vehicles, which supposedly are the least damaged, and require the least amount of repair.
The problem is that these vehicles can be repaired without notifying the DVLA, and without any kind of note in the logbook that this vehicle had been involved in an accident and had previously been written off.
The concern is that these vehicles require no inspection, not even an MOT if one is not due. Because there is no need to report a category D vehicle the DVLA have no figures on how many previously damaged vehicles are now back on the roads, or how many accidents occur with these vehicles.
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