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Re: [St] UK Reg, MSVA, and Maximum Road Speed



On 27 Sep 2008, at 00:57, Eoin Kirwan wrote:

AFAIK, SVA has SFA to do with the EU (enough acronyms for one sentence?) :) no plans whatsoever for it to be implemented here in Ireland for cars or bikes, and we were still in the EU last time I checked...

Sorry to bring bad news... it has quite a lot to do with EU, and is coming to Ireland too.


A system of European Whole Vehicle Type Approval (ECWVTA) for powered two and three-wheel vehicles (including some quadricycles) capable of more than 6km/h, came into operation on 17 June 1999. Any newly designed, volume produced, model or type of vehicle within the scope of ECWVTA and first introduced and placed on the market of an EU Member State from that date must have ECWVTA and a Certificate of Conformity issued by the manufacturer must be made available. To be valid in the UK, the Certificate of Conformity should indicate that the vehicle is suitable for use in left hand rule of the road traffic and has a speedometer calibrated in miles per hour.


The ECWVTA appears to have had a 10 year 'introductory period' as the first mandatory EU wide requirements are not due until April 2009 (with everything covered by scheme by 2013). As with all EU Directives, there appears to be ongoing negotiation about how it is implemented, and based on past form one would imagine some countries (e.g. France) will recognise but not comply with the directive for some years yet... The UK"s VA scheme (which SVA is part of) was adjusted a few years ago to be compliant with the ECWVTA it seems, but unlike many countries in EU the UK had already had something similar (vis. MOTs etc.) in place before, and so actually introducing the scheme didn't really affect anything in UK.

ECWVTA is not totally harmless however. Another bit relates to type approval of vehicles from 'low volume manufacturers' (who have less stringent testing requirements than the big manufacturers). Under UK's pre-EU rules a low volume manufacturer was allowed to make 500 units a year and stay within the scheme. Under ECWVTA the upper limit is 75 units a year. This is going to cause serious problems for the typically UK based manufacturers of small run sports cars, and 'vehicle converters' such as those who adapt cars for wheelchair access etc.

By the sound of it, while you may not know about it, it is clear that the EU is expecting Ireland to begin complying with ECWVTA from next year... though possibly not for cars and bikes for a few years yet.

Regards

Gavin Lawrie
ST'03

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