So far this year, over 1,800 (1,826) cars in Kerry have failed the NCT so badly they were not allowed drive home.
That's according to the National Car Testing service's own statistics.
When a vehicle fails the test because of a dangerous defect that "poses a direct or immediate risk to road safety", a ‘failed: dangerous’ sticker is stuck on the car and it's illegal to drive until repaired and re-inspected.
To date this year, just under 36,000 (35,987) cars have undergone the inspection in Kerry's four NCT centres.
11,523, or 48 per cent (48.17%), of vehicles passed the National Car Test (NCT) on the first attempt.
Castleisland has the highest pass rate in Kerry so far in 2026 with 1-in-every-2 cars (50.52%) passing the NCT, followed by Tralee (48.95%), Killarney (46.57%) and Cahersiveen (45.1%).
Cahersiveen had the highest failure rate (54.9%), split between 668 major failures (46.13%), and 127 dangerous failures (8.77%).
*Data collated as at the 18th May 2026.
