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Old 22nd February 2018, 09:10
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Peterux - Thanks for the vote of confidence in my ability to pick the bones out of the legal side of things, but then I was doing that for a living until last year.

I've stayed out of this debate so far as I'd always vowed not to build a car that needed IVA due to the significant extra expense and bizarre regulations that you have to comply with. I mean, rounded instrument bezels? What is that all about? If your face hits the rev counter in your Caterfield Se7en then you've got more to worry about than a cut chin.

But, I have to say I do have some concerns over these changes as they could represent a slippery slope towards retrospective regulation of existing cars or be applied to re-bodied classics that I do like to build.

I haven't yet read through all the proposals, but from what I've seen so far I think the focus should be on two areas:

1 - Clarification of what the changes actually mean for our hobby and some specialist businesses (anyone building turn-key DBR2's, SS100's or C Types in the £50k to £120k bracket, for example);

2 - Ensure that the legislators are made aware of how little impact our impractical, sunny days and holidays, limited mileage cars have on the environment, especially inner city air quality which is the hot textured tofu du jour.

As such, I would avoid any kind of rant in response and also any phrases suggesting that thousands of cars will be affected. That may well be counter-productive, giving ammunition to whoever dreamt up these changes.

Instead, a FOI subject access request could be made to DVLA to establish how many specialist cars are registered in the UK, and how many miles are driven in them each year as recorded on their MOT returns. That could then be presented as proof that introducing such legislation is a waste of taxpayers' money as the benefits would clearly be minimal when compared to the costs involved.

In fact, given that our cars are 99% petrol powered and it's now universally accepted that diesels do most of the damage to inner city air quality, I wouldn't be surprised if the particulate, CO2 and Nitrogen Oxides output of our entire hobby's cars each year is less than that of a single London Black cab, which counts as environmentally 'friendly' public transport.

I'll have a read of the proposals later and get back on here if I think I can contribute anything useful to the debate.
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