Vehicle History expert Cartell.ie is calling on the Irish Government to introduce legislation for the proper regulation of vehicle write offs.

At present there are approximately 36,000 vehicles written off in Ireland every year. About 12,000 of those are never returned to the roads due to the extent of the damage incurred. However, some 24,000 do find their way back on to the roads, after repair, and this increases the number of written off vehicles in the Irish fleet each year. Cartell estimates there are over 200,000 write offs in the Irish fleet at any time, and every year approximately 3,000 are designated as write offs for the second time in their life cycle. It also says at least six deaths occur per annum in vehicles which were previously written off.

This call follows a high profile case in the UK where a six year old girl was tragically killed in an accident and the car was found to be a previous write-off. The concern is that repairs of written off vehicles may not always be to the highest standard and may leave occupants more vulnerable. This is added to by the fact that new technology materials can mean repair defects will only become apparent after another impact.  

Cartell says the National Car Test (N.C.T.) is not designed to detect structural defects in a vehicle and a new testing procedure, regulated by Government, for write offs is urgently needed. It also calls for such a system of regulation to be unified with the definitions for vehicle write-offs with the ABI (Association of British Insurers) Category system. This system uses four categories:

• Category A: Scrap only – The vehicle is deemed too damaged to be repairable with little or no salvageable parts.
• Category B: The bodyshell should have been crushed.  The vehicle has not been repaired following significant damage. It was deemed too damaged to be repairable however did have salvageable parts.
• Category C: This vehicle was repairable, but the repair costs exceeded the vehicle value. The insurer chose not to repair for economic reasons.
• Category D: This vehicle was repairable, but the repair costs were significant compared to the vehicle value. The insurer chose not to repair for economic reasons.

Cartell has introduced several campaigns and initiative on this issue over recent years and says that proper regulation of write offs, and proper testing of vehicles, for structural defects, before written off vehicles return to the roads, will assist in reducing the number of road deaths.