The UK MoT is overprotective. There are too many 'faults' that render a car undriveable. This delights the garage trade.

Hardly any deaths or serious injuries are due to mechanical failure. The most common failure is depressurisation of a tyre. No amount of MoT inspection will stop careless insensitive people driving at high speed on a tyre with a slow puncture. The main cause of RTCs is the incompetence of the nut, sometimes under the influence of drugs (e.g. alcohol for the young, opiates for the arthritic old), behind the steering wheel.

MOT history is particularly useful if buying a used car. Mileage history.

I know people who have never had their oil changed.

I used to run a 2-year MOT interval routine in the UK.

Worked for me (but then I didn't get caught). Probably not possible in these high surveillance days.

Here in Taiwan the interval is 6 months, which is inconveniently short, but on the whole preferable, since the test is less anal and doesn't have so much scope for arbitrary "testers discretion" jive built in.

The "ITV" in Spain kicks in at 4 years, then at 6, 8 and 10 and then annually. Every 6 months for taxis, PSV, etc. There's an obligatory sticker in rotating colours (red, yellow and green), with perforations for month and year. It's smaller than a cigarette packet, and goes in the top right corner of the screen. No idea how much fraud goes on. A fake sticker doesn't get points on the licence, but big fines and up to two years behind bars seems to put people off!
It's all digitalised and the BiBs can easily check. I now have my driving licence - same number as my ID/residence card - and all the car "paperwork" on a phone app, so there's no faffing around at a roadside check, which might take 5 minutes on a bad day, and the police give a smart salute at the start and end of the interaction too!
The testing stations are licensed by the regional governments and do not do any kind of mechanical work. The curious anomaly is that prices vary from region to region, so border-hopping is common and urban legends persist that it's easier in one province than the one next door.
Driving standards and the condition of cars - some of the oldest in Europe - have increased remarkably in the 30 years I've lived in Spain, although roundabouts are still chaotic, with twice as many prangs as in the UK, which no doubt keeps mechanics busy.