Annual vehicle tests are a key part of your maintenance regime. So it’s important to pay attention to your test results.

Regular monitoring of all available information helps you check the effectiveness of your systems and keep your vehicles roadworthy.

We’ve had a look at DVSA’s latest statistics to see what they tell us about annual testing.

Initial failure rates

Initial failure rates all fell in 2017/18. 

HGVs were down to 15.50%. Trailers dropped to 11.50%. And PSVs reduced to 12.90%.

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Reasons for failure

Taking out headlamp aim and lamps, braking items once again dominated the reasons for failure.

Brake system components, service brake performance and parking brake performance were three of the top five issues for both HGVs and trailers.

For PSVs, brake system components joined body (interior), doors and emergency exits, seat belts and suspension in the top five.

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Failure rates by vehicle age

There were some reductions to the initial failure rates by age of vehicle in 2017/18.

The most notable came for 9 and 11 year old HGVs, as well as PSVs up to 1, 7, 9 and 10 years old (the latter falling 4.20%).

There were increases in the failure rates for 4, 7 and 8 year old HGVs and 3, 6, 8 and 11 year old PSVs. The initial failure rates for trailers saw no reductions, with increases for 4, 6 and 7 year old trailers.

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Failure rate by fleet size

Finally, the same vehicle groups occupied the top spots for initial failure rate.

HGV operators running one vehicle had the highest initial failure rate with 23.20%, an increase on the previous year.

Meanwhile, 2-5v operators recorded the highest initial failure rate for PSVs at 29.60%. This was a reduction of 2.7% to 2016/17.

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