As a never-ending learning experience, being an expat gives me insight into another culture. Sometimes on a daily basis, I learn something new or different about living in the UK.
This page will contain a numerical, periodically updated list of what I feel are the Piles o’ Shite (or Shit for Americans) from both sides of “The Pond” …
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Shite in the UK:
1) MOTs, The Ministry of Transport Test aka “How to Separate You From Your Cash Once a Year.”
MOT – Yes, but people are idiots and don’t maintain things themselves so they need the state to force them to. With salt on the roads it is even more prudent to have this testing. I did not face this testing in Australia either, but it makes sense even if it is immensly annoying.
The only other useful function I can think of for it is that it encourages fleet owners to keep their cars up to date (MOT is not required for the first 3 years), which should keep emissions down as they have more efficient late model cars. Oh and it give us plebs a supply of cheap, but near new, second hand models people can’t be bothered to MOT.