Driving a vehicle away following an MOT failure

Can you drive your vehicle away from the VTS following a failure? Major and/or Dangerous. I presume 'Yes' if major/'No' if dangerous.

The DVSA do not seem to be very clear on this. Perhaps it's just me (probably is!). Was wondering if you can help me understand.

From the Matters Of Testing blog:

"Julia (DVSA) posted on on 26 April 2018. Following some of your comments, we’d just like clarify the position:

The defects that have been recognised as dangerous are all pre-defined. There will not be the option to mark other defects as such. If a vehicle does fail an MOT (be that for major and/or dangerous defects) then, as now, its current MOT will still be valid until expiry. However, as now, it will still not be legal to drive if it is ‘unroadworthy’."

I have replied, but can't get passed moderation. I mentioned that in a previous reply to a post, Julia (DVSA) said that a vehicle with a dangerous defect should not be driven, but a vehicle with a Major defect could still be driven away. This post appears to have been removed since.

It now reads:

"Julia (DVSA) posted on on 11 April 2018

The responsibility for driving a vehicle (or not) sits with the motorist. As now, if a tester has recorded a dangerous defect we would expect the customer to be provided with advice on the nature and severity of the defect. Also, the failure document is now much starker in warning the motorist to not use the vehicle with dangerous defects but we do recognise that some irresponsible motorists may still chose to ignore that advice."

Neil Barlow posted on on 24 April 2018

"As now, driving an unroadworthy vehicle on the road is not legal and - more importantly - not sensible."

So, my confusion/questions: What is 'unroadworthy'? Does any major and dangerous failure mean 'unroadworthy', or just dangerous failures? If so, why don't they just say that? They're using the term 'unroadworthy' instead. Is 'unroadworthy' subjective (surely not)?

Can a customer drive their vehicle away following a failure or not?

If not, the public need to be made aware of this. What is the advantage of bringing a vehicle in early? We, as a test station, test about 30 vehicles a day. 50% of these fail. We probably repair about 50% of these. We test for other garages, including main dealers. They do their own repairs (obviously). So they can no longer take the vehicles back to their workshop? What happened to driving to and from a place of repair/test station - surely this still stands? As a company we have sites that only carry out MOTs and a few minor repairs (wipers, bulbs etc.). We're going to have to invest in some serious parking if the vehicles that fail can not be driven away. Some customers have their own, very good, preferred garages that do not perform MOTs.

There was talk from Europe that the testing stations were to be separate from the repair side of the trade. These testing stations will have recovery vehicles cued up outside like taxis at an airport.

I feel that the DVSA have backtracked. They initially thought that a vehicle with a major defect can be driven. But, probably on legal advice, they are now no longer saying that. Using the term 'unroadworthy' instead.

Regards.