No car inspections when it rains
A colleague of mine has just advised that the licensing department can no longer provide vehicle inspections in rainy weather. Is this true? Being that we have hurricane season five months out of the year, is this realistic? Do you know what the reason for this rule is if it’s in fact true?
Ask Auntie sponsor
Auntie’s answer: Actually, your colleague is correct. A Department of Vehicle and Drivers’ Licensing official confirmed that and also offered quite reasonable and practical reasons for the rule, which has pretty much always been in place.
The official pointed out that when a car comes into the inspection pit off of a wet road there will be a lot of water on the undercarriage.
“Imagine attempting to inspect a vehicle (looking up at it) with water dripping from everywhere. This is somewhat difficult to do, even wearing eye gear,” he explained.
In addition, inspecting a car in dry conditions “allows the inspectors to not only see better, but better identify any possible fluid leaks that may be occurring”.
The explanation is logical to me, though I realise it will not be convenient for someone whose appointment has to be changed due to rain.
Category: Ask Auntie, Vehicle Licensing Questions
What about government vehicles? Are they exempt from inspections during rainy season?
Classic wonderland stuff from cig civil service…
What a load of rubbish, bearing in mind that we are now in the rainy season. What sort of backlog is likely to occur if they turn people away on rainy days, and what do you do if you can’t get a car tested before the Licence expires. Typical local response any excuse to avoid doing the job.
You do know you can just buy an inspection by crossing certain people’s palms with silver, without them even seeing the vehicle, why else would you find so many illegal death trap vehicles on the road!
Yup, pisses me off people get away with that. Cops should be busting these places but they aren’t!
Let’s not forget this is the same joke of a department that can’t replace license plates. We’ll call you when it’s ready. I’m still waiting for that call over one and half years later.
This excuse is absolute rubbish. I’ve been there before and the inspectors sit in their office when they see gray clouds claiming they can’t work because “it might rain”. Time to get serious.
The ‘explanation’ sounds more like a lame excuse to me. For heavens sake even airplanes are inspected before every flight in all kinds of weather. As for testing brakes on wet road there are rolling roads designed for this. Decades ago when their were fewer cats and people this system would have been adequate but not today.
Fewer cats? Was this pre-Egyptians?
0Rolling roads, or any other solution, = higher tax to pay for it.Una Choice.
I guess the reason is that the inspectors cannot be trusted to test drive vehicles on wet roads – hardly surprising given past history.
Interesting because in the UK they will do the annual inspections (known as MoT tests and much, much tougher than the joke safety checks we have here) regardless of the prevailing weather.
I’ve driven my car to a UK test centre through 3″ of snow/slush and had it tested with no issues.
If the people doing the inspections know what they’re doing it’s not a problem but that’s the problem isn’t it?
1:23 And in the UK the law requires that the cars are put on a lift so that the steering and suspension are properly tested for wear off-load. As you say the inspections here are a joke. A friend of mine has a Lexus SUV that passed inspection even though both front seatbelt tensioners are broken – the belts are not just useless but potentially life-threatening.
And the fool is driving around like that? I wonder whose responsibility he thinks it is to get it fixed.
Also the brake test on a wet road surface is less safe.
They shouldn’t be doing it on the roads in the first place – it’s not a valid test.
They do it in the parking lot. Road SURFACE, i.e., tarmac.
They are snowflakes people! In UK we have one of most stringent vehicle inspection and they do in all weather, snow or rain or sunny!
Luxury!!
Where I come from, you have to drive your car through 3 feet of molten lava, cool it down in a sewage pit and get it inspected down the coal mine.
And the inspectors are all 5 year old kids with rickets.
Moron
Yet somehow can’t manage to get the trains to operate in those conditions. Bizarre.
This reasoning is, of course, complete rubbish. On that basis you could never inspect a car in Wales or Scotland and yet, amazingly, they seem to manage somehow. I wonder what the difference could possibly be?
Higher taxes. Next question please?
I would have to say that those excuses are very lame . Aren’t these. inspection pits under a roof , why are they alowed to flood when rains ? Does the Police give you grace period because you came to get your inspected and they couldn’t because of the rain ? I think that rainy weather shouldn’t be a reason why you can’t get you vehicle inspected . Then again if the vehicle can be operated in rainy weather conditions, that could say that the vehicle operative in any weather conditions .
Has always been this way as far back as I can remember. Ridiculous!
There is a long list of private garages that will put your car on a lift, perform, and sign off on the inspection…even on rainy days. I haven’t relied on the fair-weather DVDL pit inspections and “joy riders” in decades. Private Garage Program bill the cost of these inspections back to the DVDL.
http://www.dvdl.gov.ky/portal/page/portal/vlthome/vehicles/certificate/facilities
or even better, there are some garages that just sign the inspection sight unseen, just look at some of the vehicles on the road in Cayman
They can’t build a cover over the inspection pit?
9.11am That would not keep the underside of a car from getting wet while driving through water.
I wish I had a job that I don’t have to do when it rained. Oh wait, almost everyone is inconvienced by rain here but we still do our job. Maybe they should’ve designed the inspection pit area better knowing full well that it rains here.
When I went, I was told it was because of the roads being wet. Either way I had to wait 3 weeks.
Last time I went to renew my license was back in May when we had that week long rain, and some people were asking why they won’t inspect in the rain. The guy said the pit at breakers was built with the drain higher than the lowest point in the pit.
Imagine, a design with the assumption that water flows UPHILL. He said with water in the pit it also makes it unsafe to work.
Yup, private (construction) sector at its finest.
But… in the UK they manage just fine, with a far more stringent test. I get the reasoning, but seriously, it just rained for about 2.5 weeks, did no cars get inspected? What about if as a result you then had to drive an uninspected car?
Do what I do, don’t wait until the last minute!!! I always go in to have that kind of stuff done at least a week before expiration.
Doing it the last minute is just begging for something to go wrong.
I’ve gone early before only for them to tell me It’s too early for me to renew my license. Like by 3 weeks. WTH
That’s not so 3:33! If you wer told that at all. I renewed a month early yesterday!!!! They told me I had a month remaining, but I said i was aware and wanted to renew now.
Great, well the teller I got was lazy then!
Last minute? You think 1 or 2 weeks is last minute???
Do the inspectors get paid when it rains? If so they should stick them behind one of the 3 unused kiosks and get them processing customers.
My guess is they do get paid and they sit back with their feet up watching government wastage fall from the sky.
12:29 What do you think? Of course they get paid that’s why they work for CIG!
I cannot endorse this comment enough.
Get it inspected at one of the private garages
9.02am Well take it to the UK then.
beginning of June till the end on November is 6 months and they have never inspected wet cars in my 30 years of driving here.