Flemish Minister of Mobility Lydia Peeters (Open Vld) resolutely opts for more structural measures to address the capacity problems at the technical inspection centers. The most remarkable measure is the extension of the periodicity for passenger cars (vehicle category M11).

New vehicles were subject to a yearly inspection from the day they turned four years old. Minister Peeters’ new initiative changes this periodicity to every two years until the vehicle has 160,000 km on the odometer. The new regulations result in a volume drop of around half a million cars annually.

So, the new regulation requires a periodic inspection four years after first putting it into service, then every two years until the vehicle has reached a mileage of 160,000 km, and annually thereafter – the so-called ‘4/2/2/… arrangement. In other words, the limit of 160,000 km and the car’s age of ten years will become the new threshold for annual periodicity.

Structural changes

With this proposal, Minister Peeters implements additional and mainly more structural changes to further optimize the technical inspection of vehicles within the existing recognition and operating conditions. “We have mainly looked for pragmatic solutions to reduce the pressure on the recognized inspection centers,” Peeters explained.

Peeters’ new proposal has a negligible impact on road safety. At least 11 countries follow the European directive with a 4/2/2/… arrangement. This proposal will most benefit owners of vehicles that are driven infrequently.

‘Decentralized inspections’

“For example, someone who travels 10,000 to 15,000 km annually will have about two to four fewer periodic technical inspections than is currently the case,” explains Minister Peeters. It will help the inspection centers to significantly reduce waiting times and queues and will, therefore, contribute to improving services. It is also good for the environment because this way we avoid a lot of travel.

Within these new regulations, Flemish Minister Lydia Peeters expands the concept of ‘decentralized inspections’. This means that passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, and trailers can be inspected outside a recognized inspection center, for example, at a garage with an officially recognized inspection line. “I am convinced that both adjustments will have an unprecedented impact and can quickly eliminate the structural backlog at the inspection centers,” Peeters concludes.

In the summer of 2022, Minister Peeters decided to organize an audit of the operation and customer satisfaction of inspection centers. The queues in the inspection centers were getting longer and longer, and drivers often did not succeed in getting their vehicles inspected on time.

On top of that, complaints about the lack of respect for vehicles and poor customer service were piling up. It was back then she decided to reform the technical inspection system and break the monopoly of the inspection centers in Flanders.