Where's the evidence that this would save lives?

I am not convinced that poorly executed repairs cause many accidents.

According to a Department for Transport study, Contributory Factors to Road Accidents, 2005, the main causes of accidents are as follows:

• Failure to look properly – 18%
• Failure to judge another person's path/speed – 10%
• Being careless, reckless or in a hurry – 9%
• Poor turning/manoeuvring – 8%
• Loss of control – 8%
• Going too fast for conditions – 7%
• Slippery road – 6%
• Following too close – 4%
• Sudden braking – 4%

(Edited to add - I'm not aware of a more recent study, but the rise of smartphones can only have made the human factors even more significant in the last ten years).

These figures are drawn from accidents where the police attended the scene and a contributory factor was reported.

Given that most of these are caused by the human behind the wheel, I would have thought there was a much better return on investment from having motorists do regulalar top-up training than mechanics.

Edited by Marlot on 15/09/2014 at 12:25

Its a valid point. The mechanics particularly the Master Technican I employ at my garage have invested a lot of their time post apprenticeship in training courses to keep themselves of latest technologies. These Hybrids for example have electrical systems running at higher voltages than are found in your house and similarly new hazards like auto engine start can occur when working on the vehicle if the correct precautions aren't taken. (Imagine having your hands under the bonnet of a Prius and the engine starts?

Whilst I would welcome a registration and qualification process for servciing and repairs on vehicles it will be very difficult if not impossible to enforce. There will be nothing to stop "Fred in the shed" from going to a scrap yard to fit parts on customers cars. It "may" improve safety of cars in that repairs will be undertaken by qualified and registered repairers it won't however do anything for those people who never service their vehicles and run them until they drop to bits. To drive up safety standards which I think would be the aim of such a registeration process vehicle safety inspections should be more rigerous (the MOT) and fines associated with keeping or using an unroadworthy vehicle should be adjusted to encourage proper behaviour from owners. The flip side to this will be that cars will reach their "Economic end of life" state earlier so their will be environmnetal concerns to balance

Is it time for a compulsory recognised qualification to be introduced for car mechanics.

There's already a recognised qualification but, unfortunately, it's not mandatory but voluntary. The IMI recognises and awards mechanics on their skills and it's easy to filter out the 'Fred in a shed' ones by doing a simple search on their website :

www.imiregister.org.uk

You can search an individual or business which should give you an indication of the garages commitment to the scheme. If the garage you're thinking of using has accredited techs working there, it should give you some confidence.

Like I said, the scheme is voluntary at present but I'd like to see it made mandatory in an effort to prove the motor trade is no longer the 'bodge it and scarper' trade that it's usually portrayed as.

I'm proud to be a accredited tech and at present, I'm on my way through hard work, time and effort to gain my Master technician accreditation.

We are currently having quite a bit of work done at our mansion. Although a keen DIYer there are curtains works that I am not permitted to carry out. Any gas works and much electrical works have to be left to the professionals who have the necessary

qualifications. For safety reasons I can fully see the logic of this even if many of the jobs I could have done myself. Similarly a structural engineer has been employed to work out the steel needed for the RSJs.

As a DIYer you can legally do just about anything in your house, though you may need to go through buildings control for some limited electrical work and to fit a boiler or an unvented cylinder (actually the latter might actually require a qualification - which is ludicrous - I'm not sure). I replaced my own fusebox, and BC "inspected" it (looked at it for a couple of seconds). In practice, he probably decided I knew what I was doing and that he didn't need to get an electrician in, but still....The Buildings Officer also freely admitted that Part P was a pain, they didn't want it, and that the only people jumping through the hoops were the people who would have done it right in the first place anyway. The qualified plumber who fitted my unvented cylinder didn't run through the test procedure. I know he didn't, because I did, and if he had he'd have spotted the water coming through the compression joint he'd forgotten to tighten. We employed a structural engineer for our extension. He was ****ing useless, and if if I had trusted his calculations, I'd at the very least have a big sag in the ceiling. He did admit his mistake when I pointed it out to him... I didn't pull these guys out of the yellow pages either...

Given the number of uninsured cars alleged to be on the roads, I can't see why owners would baulk at using an unlicensed but cheaper mechanic.