My daughter brought her car to Little Island yesterday for her NCT. She failed the test because of a problem with a ball joint in the front wheel. Now, she must get that fixed, which is fair enough and then she has to bring it back to the NCT centre to have it checked again.
I went with her and it was noticeable on the way up, the number of pot-holes and dips in the road the she went into by just doing what she is supposed to do which is keeping to her own side of the road. It’s no wonder that cars are developing problems with ball joints among other things.
When she bought the car, she paid dearly for it and a chunk of that money went on tax. She pays a huge amount of tax on every litre of fuel she puts into it. A large portion of her insurance premium also goes to the tax man and the road tax is another substantial offering to the exchequer.
Motorists are making generous donations to the Government but what do we receive from them in return?
We get roads that are in such a poor condition that they are causing damage to our cars. Then, as if that’s not bad enough, we get penalised by the NCT system because the cars are damaged, and we have to pay for that test and we are charged for the re-test as well.
But there is no accountability for the condition of the roads. If there was a system for testing them, I suspect that not too many of them would pass.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.