Asked by: Eric Ollerenshaw (Conservative - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 23 October 2014 to Question 211087, if he will bring forward proposals to prevent, by means of (a) a mandatory seal and (b) other measures motorcyclists tampering with their exhausts after passing the MOT noise test.
Answered by Claire Perry
The MOT test does not, as a matter of principle, involve modifying the vehicles tested in any way. This is in part to ensure that the vehicle owner can have confidence that their vehicle is not damaged by the test. We would be happy to consider proposals to make enforcement against noisy motorcyclists easier. It is doubtful a mandatory seal is a practical and proportionate measure, as many motorcyclists need to make legitimate repairs or modifications to their exhausts between annual tests.
Asked by: Eric Ollerenshaw (Conservative - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 23 October 2014 to Question 211087, what current legal mechanisms are in place to tackle excessive motorcycle noise and punish the owners of such vehicles.
Answered by Claire Perry
Enforcement of legislation including punishment of offenders is a matter for the Home Office. The police decide whether an offence may be being committed and take such action as they consider appropriate in each case. Action might range from informal advice to, for specified offences, the offer of a fixed penalty, to prosecution.
Asked by: Eric Ollerenshaw (Conservative - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will bring forward measures to deal with excessive exhaust noise from motorcycles through the MOT test.
Answered by Claire Perry
The current motorcycle MOT test already includes an inspection for excessive noise from the exhaust. A machine will be rejected where the noise from a silencer is clearly in excess of that which would be produced by a similar machine fitted with a standard silencer in average condition.
Asked by: Eric Ollerenshaw (Conservative - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps are being taken to ensure safety on Northern Rail and TransPennine Express trains running driver-only operations.
Answered by Claire Perry
There are currently no services on either the TransPennine Express (TPE) or Northern franchises that use driver only operation (DOO). In the consultation on the future of these franchises, which concluded on 28th August, we stated that: "on the Northern franchise, we expect to require bidders to set out how DOO may be introduced onto suitable services. On TPE, this will be left at bidders' discretion." Driver only operation is a safe method that is already the working practice on around 30% of existing franchise services (including for instance many commuter services in London and Glasgow).
Asked by: Eric Ollerenshaw (Conservative - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many individuals applied to have their licences restored following the voluntary or enforced revocation of a driving licence on medical grounds in the most recent period for which figures are available; what the average timescale was for an application to be decided in that period; and how many requests were outstanding.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
The tables below show the number of drivers that have voluntarily surrendered, or had their driving licence refused/ revoked on medical grounds, during 2013 and since applied to restore their licence and the average timescale for processing these applications: