Classic Car Buyer Magazine No.208 MAZDA MX-5 - BUY & RUN FOR £3k Back Issue

A long term CCB subscriber
I know quite well phoned
the office just before this
issue went to press and recalled
an amazing tale he’d been told at a
recent meeting of the On-line Austin
Seven Club. A fellow member told
of how he was recently stopped by
a police officer and accused of not
wearing a seat belt while driving his
pre-war baby Austin. Not only did
this ill-informed officer threaten to
book the Seven’s innocent driver for
not wearing his car’s non-existent
belt, she also told the fellow in
question that his vehicle wasn’t
showing up as having a current MoT
certificate, and that he would be
hearing from the authorities about
this ‘serious infringement’ in due
course.
According to my contact, the
officer in question was totally
ignorant of the fact that drivers of
vintage and classic vehicles that
have never had seat belts installed
are exempt from regulations
governing the wearing of belts. Not
only that, but as the little Austin had
been built several decades before
the 1960 cut-off date for compulsory
MoT testing, the driver’s explanation
that his car didn’t legally require a
current certificate was dismissed
by the officer as ‘utter nonsense’.
Such ignorance of the regulations
by a professional whose job it is to
enforce the law on the highway is
inexcusable and downright appalling.
This situation reminded me of
a recent conversation I had with
PC Alan Cole, a classic-friendly
member of the West Midlands Motor
Patrol Group, when he was bringing
me up to date with his on-going
crusade to try and make fellow
police officers aware of how traffic
regulations should be applied to
classic and vintage vehicles. Alan,
whose motorway patrol exploits
are regularly screened on the TV
programme ‘Motorway Cops’, told me
how he is being constantly surprised
by the large number of officers who
are still totally unaware of the recent
changes to the MoT rules and how
they are applied to vehicles built
before 1960.