For years, GAGT e.V. has been receiving complaints from market participants in Germany, some of them very angry, about inadequacies in main inspections according to § 29 StVZO, carried out by “inspection organisations” and “technical services”. These letters of complaint mainly come from motor caravan and caravan owners. The lynchpin is always the installation of pressurised gas containers for “self-filling” by customers and the demand for a gas system inspection according to DVGW e.V. Gas System Inspection G 607, in this context also with the non-issue of inspection stickers, within the scope of a main inspection according to § 29 StVZO.
The GAGT e.V. would like to take this opportunity to point out a way in which you can express your anger to the right place. Supervisory authorities, which supervise the above-mentioned services of TÜV – DEKRA etc., are named here for the first time, as the various areas of responsibility of these are hardly known to any citizen. Of course, this is not so easy if the citizen does not know who is responsible for the matter or the nuisance. Therefore, here is a list of the responsibilities in Germany. Of course, one must clearly distinguish which authority in which federal state is responsible for them. We will now illustrate this for you using the DEKRA organisation as an example.
Whenever you drive onto a test site or into a workshop, e.g. to have a general inspection carried out in accordance with § 29 of the German Road Traffic Licensing Regulations (StVZO), look out for the name of the inspection organisation at the entrance to the site. An “officially recognised DEKRA e.V. inspection organisation”, for example, is always subject to the supervision of the federal state in which the test centre is located, e.g. in Bavaria this would be the Government of Lower Bavaria, Regierungsplatz 540, D-84028 Landshut, which can also be reached at the address: pressestelle@reg-nb.bayern.de.
However, if you come across a DEKRA Automobile GmbH test centre, the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) in Flensburg, Fördestraße 16, is responsible for the justified reporting of a nuisance. This is because DEKRA is a “technical service”, which has a more extensive range of tasks within the scope of its activities. Therefore, the “designation office” of the KBA is also responsible here and only this office. The address is: Kraftfahrt – Bundesamt, Fördesraße 16, D- 24944 Flensburg, e-mail: kba@kba.de.
Of course, this type of enquiry also applies to all other testing organisations such as TÜV-TÜH-KÜS- GTÜ etc., whereby care must always be taken, if only because of the assignment, whether there is an e.V., then (state authority) behind the name or a GmbH or Co. KG etc., then the (KBA) would be responsible. The repeatedly quoted sentence of an authority … not responsible… towards a citizen, should thus be a thing of the past. If you have any further questions, please send us an e-mail: peter.ziegler@gagt.de or go to our “Comments” page under this article. Of course, we can also send you the complete list of addresses of all competent complaint offices of the federal states by e-mail on request.
