Passing the MOT is a mandatory procedure that all vehicles, from a certain age, must carry out to guarantee that they comply with safety and emissions standards. Despite the importance of this process to guarantee road safety, especially in a country with a very aging vehicle fleet such as Spain, at least three out of every ten vehicles that should have passed the ITV in the last year have not done so. , according to the data managed by the sector’s employers’ association AECA-ITV.
The high percentage of absenteeism when submitting the vehicle to technical inspection has increased in recent years, especially coinciding with the pandemic. In parallel, the average age of cars in Spain has grown to 14.2 years in 2023, which represents an increase of 0.31 years compared to the previous year. Furthermore, 25% of the vehicles that circulate on the roads of our country are older than 20 years from the date of their first registration, which constitutes a problem for both road safety and the environment.
Hence lies the importance of the vehicles that travel on our roads being in a position to do so and that they pass the ITV when appropriate. Although there are drivers who deliberately refrain from passing the inspection, there are others who simply forget or postpone this task. To avoid these forgetfulness, there are various tools available that can help vehicle owners remember the MOT deadline for their vehicles.
This digital platform, very popular in other European countries, is still quite unknown in Spain. The first version was launched by the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence at the end of 2022 and has been refined over time. It is a personal online space that simplifies the relationship between citizens and Public Administrations.
My Citizen Folder allows the user to quickly consult certain personal data and previous appointments managed by public administrations, access pending notifications from the State Administration and numerous autonomous communities and local entities. It also informs about the status of the files in processing.
In the ‘Vehicle and transport’ section, people can see all the information related to the vehicles that they have in their name. Among the data offered by the platform is the expiration date of the ITV. Likewise, when accessing the pending notifications from various public administrations, one of the notices that appears is the date of the next expiration of the ITV.
This other tool that allows you to check the expiration date of the MOT is much more popular. The DGT reported at the end of 2022 that the miDGT mobile application then had 8.3 million downloads, which gives an idea of ??its acceptance among drivers. The fact that it allows you to download your driving license in digital format and that it is valid for all purposes is one of the keys to its popularity and usefulness.
But in addition to this and other functionalities of interest, the Traffic app also offers information about the technical inspections of the vehicles that a person has in their name. In the ‘My Vehicles’ section, you can see if the last inspection of the vehicle in question was favorable or unfavorable, as well as the exact date on which its MOT expires.
Although these digital tools are very effective in preventing us from missing the deadline to pass the MOT, there are other more traditional systems to know exactly that date. Drivers can check the expiration month of the MOT on the technical inspection sticker or on the vehicle’s technical sheet.
To speed up and facilitate the process of passing the inspection before the deadline expires, the regulations allow the MOT to be passed up to one month before its expiration without this implying the modification of the validity period of the next inspection. In this way, drivers have more time to request an appointment at the more than 400 stations throughout the country without the deadline being shortened.