Car clocking is endangering lives on our roads – Clune

Nov 11, 2014 | People

Car clocking is endangering lives on our roads – Clune

Nov 11, 2014 | People

Car clocking is endangering lives on our roads – Clune

Nov 11, 2014 | People

Ireland South MEP and member of the Transport committee, Deirdre Clune has met with several motoring organisations across Europe who have grave concerns about the increasing impact of Car Clocking on road safety,

 

“I have today, submitted a Parliamentary Question to the Commission on what they plan to do to immediately tackle the issue of car clocking or mileage fraud in the used car market. The principle issue is safety. Car maintenance is based on mileage. If a cars mileage is artificially lower than it should be, then cars may not be getting the correct maintenance and garage works that they need. For example brake pads need to be changed at a certain mileage. This type of fraud has a serious impact on road safety across Europe.

 

“The European Commission estimates that up to 12% of European used cars have had their mileage reading tampered with, costing European consumers up to €9.6 billion per year in a conservative scenario. The European Commission estimates that up to 50% of all cars for cross border used car sales have been clocked or had their mileage tampered with in some way.

 

“We are importing an increasing number of cars from the UK into Ireland – 36% more between 2012 and 2013.

 

“Creating an EU mileage database is a good start but we also need publicity campaigns, proper legislation to tackle this offense and more co-operation from the manufacturers to make tampering with a cars mileage a more difficult prospect. As things stand artificially lowering the mileage of a car is a technically simple, cheap manipulation, which can inflate a vehicle’s value by several thousand euros.

 

“Experts in the industry in Ireland claim that car clocking could be as high as 10% of all second hand cars. According to SIMI, the society of the Irish Motor Industry, almost 13% of vehicles imported from the UK had a serious anomaly from the last recorded mileage in the UK. Modern cars have digital displays which require a few minutes with a computer to alter the mileage.

 

“Road fatalities in Europe have come down from almost 76,000 in 1990 to 26,000 this year. That is real progress. We must explore every avenue to ensure that saving lives on our roads is a priority. Car clocking must be tackled now.