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Daily Mail article bashing Motability:
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To be honest I surprised why Motability vehicle are not all fitted with trackers and or Motability on the no plates, there has to be a way of stopping all this abuse, as previously with all this publicity genuine disabled people will suffer.
Crikey, I cannot believe I am reading this, posted by a disabled person as well.
With all the ‘anti-Motability’ sentiment in the court of public (and media) opinion currently ongoing, do you really want to identify disabled Motability scheme users by their number plates?
If you really want to highlight them, I suppose you would also have them wear the ‘Star of David’ a la 1930’s Germany?
Oscarmax, It really does look that you are believing all the ‘hype & tripe’ bile the media are spreading about the scheme if you think there is quote ‘all this abuse’, warranting tracking and special number plates.
Just why should a law abiding disabled person have his/her Motability vehicle tracked? Would you also track able-bodied Joe Bloggs who got his lease vehicle from Lex (other lessors are available)?
Please do not fall for it. You will only marginalise currently beleaguered disabled people even more by your suggestions. Infact you will cause all disabled people to suffer for the actions of a very tiny minority whipped up by a sensationalist media.
To be honest I surprised why Motability vehicle are not all fitted with trackers and or Motability on the no plates, there has to be a way of stopping all this abuse, as previously with all this publicity genuine disabled people will suffer.
To be fair mate, I have never broadcast the fact, I have a Motability car and would swop the plates on pickup or choose not to have a car at all, not as it will affect the public purse whether I do or don’t. I also think having Motability on the plates, could possibly increase abuse to the claimant?
To be honest I surprised why Motability vehicle are not all fitted with trackers and or Motability on the no plates, there has to be a way of stopping all this abuse, as previously with all this publicity genuine disabled people will suffer.
Both suggestions would be highly problematic.
The cost of putting trackers on all vehicles would be phenomenal (easily over £100m) and that cost would have to be paid for by scheme members through higher APs. On top of that, Motability would need to employ hundreds more staff to monitor them (again, extra cost, passed on to scheme members) and what would they be looking for? Short of movements that clearly indicate a taxi, they would have no way of knowing what the car was being used for, who was in the car and whether or not the disabled person would benefit.
As for marking the car in some way to designate it as a Motability car, that would be the tipping point for many legitimate users to leave the scheme (my wife included). Aside from being a generally bad idea, it would create no end of problems. You only have to glance at some of the comments online from the ignorant Neanderthals who weigh in every time the scheme is mentioned to know that marked cars would become targets, as would the people in them. I’d suggest that there would be targeted vandalism (especially against the better cars like BMWs) from the green eyed mob who would love the car but not the disability that goes with it. Someone with an i4 posted the other day that they now felt uncomfortable enough as it was parking in a blue badge bay (incidentally, you can always tell if an i4 is a Motability car as it will be the 35 model – 90% of private buyers get the 40 and 50 models 😉). Also, Motability would be inundated with disgruntled workmates ‘reporting’ able bodied colleagues who turn up at work every day in a Motability car. These people would have no idea that if the benefit recipient can’t work and their partner is the breadwinner, then the partner using the car for commuting every day is perfectly within the scheme rules.
For the above reasons, and others, neither idea makes much sense. I’d argue that if Motability removed cars from 5,300 people last year due to abuse, then they are already doing a great job in that regard. By far the bigger problem is people getting the qualifying entitlement who shouldn’t, and last weeks announcement is the first step in addressing that, although I’m surprised that they didn’t tighten up the mobility criteria of PIP as well as daily living. The ‘ability to follow the route of a familiar journey without assistance’ question remains an obvious area that many will exploit and is difficult to disprove, but that’s a government issue and nothing to do with Motability.
To be honest I surprised why Motability vehicle are not all fitted with trackers and or Motability on the no plates, there has to be a way of stopping all this abuse, as previously with all this publicity genuine disabled people will suffer.
Crikey, I cannot believe I am reading this, posted by a disabled person as well. With all the ‘anti-Motability’ sentiment in the court of public (and media) opinion currently ongoing, do you really want to identify disabled Motability scheme users by their number plates? If you really want to highlight them, I suppose you would also have them wear the ‘Star of David’ a la 1930’s Germany? Oscarmax, It really does look that you are believing all the ‘hype & tripe’ bile the media are spreading about the scheme if you think there is quote ‘all this abuse’, warranting tracking and special number plates. Just why should a law abiding disabled person have his/her Motability vehicle tracked? Would you also track able-bodied Joe Bloggs who got his lease vehicle from Lex (other lessors are available)? Please do not fall for it. You will only marginalise currently beleaguered disabled people even more by your suggestions. Infact you will cause all disabled people to suffer for the actions of a very tiny minority whipped up by a sensationalist media.
I think I have miss judge my last posting, I was just thinking of a way of avoiding all this bad publicity, sorry if I have offended anyone.
Unfortunately I have suffered a brain injury and occasionally I get confused and often say the wrong thing.
Trackers make sense to prevent misuse of vehicles. But all that would happen is the vehicle would be taken away and the PIP payments would continue to the claimant.
Therefore it would do nothing to prevent any people “wrongfully” claiming PIP and Motability would suffer as they make profit from each car they lease.
To be honest I surprised why Motability vehicle are not all fitted with trackers and or Motability on the no plates, there has to be a way of stopping all this abuse, as previously with all this publicity genuine disabled people will suffer.
Crikey, I cannot believe I am reading this, posted by a disabled person as well. With all the ‘anti-Motability’ sentiment in the court of public (and media) opinion currently ongoing, do you really want to identify disabled Motability scheme users by their number plates? If you really want to highlight them, I suppose you would also have them wear the ‘Star of David’ a la 1930’s Germany? Oscarmax, It really does look that you are believing all the ‘hype & tripe’ bile the media are spreading about the scheme if you think there is quote ‘all this abuse’, warranting tracking and special number plates. Just why should a law abiding disabled person have his/her Motability vehicle tracked? Would you also track able-bodied Joe Bloggs who got his lease vehicle from Lex (other lessors are available)? Please do not fall for it. You will only marginalise currently beleaguered disabled people even more by your suggestions. Infact you will cause all disabled people to suffer for the actions of a very tiny minority whipped up by a sensationalist media.
I think I have miss judge my last posting, I was just thinking of a way of avoiding all this bad publicity, sorry if I have offended anyone.
Hi Oscarmax,
No apology necessary or required.
Am not offended, just I didn’t think you had fully thought through your idea before hitting the submit button.
As others have pointed out more succinctly than I, there would be consequences of such a plan.
No harm done anyway. We all live and learn.
Dave.
@Oscarmax No offence taken here either and no harm done whatsoever. The constant barrage of abuse against Motability customers at present is testing all of us.
Hopefully Motability won’t knee jerk like they did last time, but I remain curious as to whether the much discussed BMW i4 will still be on the scheme next quarter. I hope it is, and Motability will go up in my estimation if that’s the case, but suspect it might be ‘rested for a while!
Article from today’s Guardian challenging the ‘facts’ in recent tabloid articles and highlighting the pipeline of conspiracy/troll accounts into mainstream journalism. Fact-checking ignored when it suits your political purpose: hate-mongering.
blah, blah, blah
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/24/motability-disability-scheme-uk-taxpayers-government?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Article from today’s Guardian challenging the ‘facts’ in recent tabloid articles and highlighting the pipeline of conspiracy/troll accounts into mainstream journalism. Fact-checking ignored when it suits your political purpose: hate-mongering.
And who was at the centre of it al again , the fecking Daily Fail!
And we know an upstanding Daily Fail citizen is sure to read the Guardian as well & learn of the clickbait tactics all too prevalent in today’s press.
In life, it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found out.
It’s not just been the Daily Mail this time. The Telegraph have had at least 3 articles criticising Motability and The Sun carried at least one as well. Plus, of course, multiple YouTubers and other ‘influencer’ types 🙄
It’s not just been the Daily Mail this time. The Telegraph have had at least 3 articles criticising Motability and The Sun carried at least one as well. Plus, of course, multiple YouTubers and other ‘influencer’ types
I understand that but, it stemmed from from a little prick on X, the main instigator was in fact the Daily Fail, which sent that side of the media world into frenzy, including the claptrap from the Telegraph, of which one article from them attempted to bring it back from the brink and Daily shite dose from the Express and so on.
I have an app that gives me access to all the newspapers online so it’s been interesting following the story.
Another article in today’s Telegraph about fraud. It announces that ‘thousands of people ‘have been thrown of the scheme as Motability cracks down on fraud and as many as 15 are thrown off a day. Later on it tells us that 5300 people were thrown off the scheme and further down a graph shows over 800k members. Sounds awful and whilst we all would applaud genuine fraudsters thrown off the scheme, anyone with simple mathematical skills will see that it accounts for about 0.5% fraud rate. Every scheme known to man is defrauded in some way but 0.5% is low by any standard.There’s always 2 ways to look at fraud. Anything less than 1% can easy be seen as negligible. However if your total bill is £60bn per annum, then the 1% is still £600m which isn’t a small sum.
Then there’s the small factor that all government departments are required to account for expenditure to the penny, back when I was reconciling the military pay account, there was £250m which had to be fully reconciled to the last penny and any discrepancy had to be identified and a path to rectification agreed within the period it was identified. It was probably the strictest guidelines I’ve worked under but it showed how the accounting at department level was properly managed.
I'm Autistic, if I say something you find offensive, please let me know, I can guarantee it was unintentional.
I'll try to give my honest opinion but am always open to learning.Mark
Unless claimants abuse the scheme rules, the DWP are the only obes that can stop benefits through fraud and remove a claimants benefit entitlement and thus no longer be applicable for the Motability scheme!
The press have a lot to answer for and need reigning in!
Story in the MailOnline “Benefits Claimants Receive Free EV Chargers” and a nice picture of people queuing outside a post office, FFS ! 🤦
Enyaq EV
Guys I think you are giving this more publicity than it’s due. If you look at the demographic of those still reading newspapers you will find a small number of older people are mostly likely to be still buying them.
If I hadn’t read this I would have been totally unaware of any of it as I don’t read newspapers nor right wing news outlets and never heard any of it on mainstream TV.
So the moral of the story is don’t read right wing nonsense 👍
The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.Brydo hits the nail on the head. I was only aware of all this bile from links on this thread (we’re helping click bait revenues at these repellant publications). It has leaked out into the mainstream though. Moral of the story is; don’t feed the trolls.
blah, blah, blah
Unfortunately, most of the ‘newspaper’ content is online these days, so whilst it’s true that very few people buy a physical newspaper, you don’t need to in order to see all this stuff. Once you add in all the other online content (YouTube, social media etc) which, in totality, isn’t politically biased, the combined audience is far greater than those (mostly of our generation) who still watch mainstream TV!
I’ve certainly stopped reading the thousands and thousands of comments that accompany these articles, as it winds me up too much, but history shows that Motability read and can react to these articles in terms of how they shape the scheme, so I’m grateful when people post links to them. For example, if I was considering a new BMW i4 (which I’m not) then I’d be ordering before the end of this quarter, for fear that it might be removed in response to having been mentioned so many times in all of these articles and online commentary pieces!
Don’t worry people the media can criticise the Motability Scheme all they want it’s not going anywhere! Without the Motability Scheme the car industry in the UK would go bust overnight with tens of thousands of people losing their jobs!!!
There’s always 2 ways to look at fraud. Anything less than 1% can easy be seen as negligible. However if your total bill is £60bn per annum, then the 1% is still £600m which isn’t a small sum. Then there’s the small factor that all government departments are required to account for expenditure to the penny, back when I was reconciling the military pay account, there was £250m which had to be fully reconciled to the last penny and any discrepancy had to be identified and a path to rectification agreed within the period it was identified. It was probably the strictest guidelines I’ve worked under but it showed how the accounting at department level was properly managed.
So you’re the one I have to blame for having to pay back that £11 salary overpayment! 🤣🤣
Don’t worry people the media can criticise the Motability Scheme all they want it’s not going anywhere! Without the Motability Scheme the car industry in the UK would go bust overnight with tens of thousands of people losing their jobs!!!
I agree there’s no way that the scheme will be scrapped, but this latest round of attacks could see the removal of some higher end EVs. Last time this happened it was just the Daily Mail, yet scheme choice was drastically cut, and never recovered (in fact it was the start of a long decline from over 5,000 cars to under 1,000). This time it’s been multiple newspapers, online, multiple YouTubers, MPs etc. I will be impressed if Motability hold their nerve, but we shall see.
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