It is a legal requirement that cars driving on our roads are in possession of a valid MOT certificate. However, a shocking number of motorists admit to getting behind the wheel without a car, a new report finds.
A poll of 2,006 motorists showed that almost a quarter (24 percent) said they had driven a vehicle without a valid MOT in the past year.
This would equate to some 9.3 million motorists, if extrapolated to UK motorists.
However, the police issued fewer than 17,000 fines in the same period, suggesting that many drivers behind the wheel of motorcycles without a valid MOT go unnoticed and unpunished.
Some 24% of drivers surveyed by Halfords said they have driven their car on the road with an expired MOT certificate in the past 12 months. But our own research showed that very few offenders were punished for this
Annual checks have become one of the top car news stories of 2023 since the government launched an MOT consultation in January as it considers extending the period between roadworthiness tests.
Currently, all cars and vans receive their first MOT when they reach the third year and then – according to the law – must be inspected annually.
However, ministers are considering extending the initial check to a car’s fourth year and every two years thereafter.
The controversial proposal has drawn MOT criticism from many motorist organisations, road safety groups and the wider garage industry.
Yet this new research by Halfords suggests that many drivers are already ignoring current mandatory MOT schedules – and not being penalized if they do.
The poll found that some drivers admitted to using cars without MOT for one-off trips, many saying they did so out of habit.
Those who admit to driving an unregistered vehicle in the past year say they have done so an average of 10.6 times, for a total of 99.2 million illegal trips, the report said.
When a car’s MOT expires, it is automatically identified by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s database.
This information is accessible to anyone with your license plate number and can lead to prosecution.
Equipped with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras in patrol cars, the police can easily identify vehicles without a valid certificate.
You can be fined up to £1,000 for driving a car without a valid MOT.
If you drive a vehicle deemed ‘dangerous’ by an MOT, you could be fined up to £2,500, banned from driving and given three penalty points.
While motorists cannot renew their motor vehicle tax (car tax) without a valid MOT certificate, many drivers can still stand on their tax for weeks or months, but the car’s MOT has expired.
You can be fined up to £1,000 for driving a car without a valid MOT. Driving a motorcycle with an existing ‘dangerous’ defect identified during an MOT could result in a fine of up to £2,500, a driving ban and three penalty points
Despite the police having access to ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) technology that can help them quickly identify whether a vehicle is taxed, insured and has a valid MOT, the police services only catch a small number of drivers without a valid certificate.
In fact, only two police forces (West Yorkshire and Suffolk) have issued more than 1,000 fines in the past 12 months.
For most it was much less.
For example, Dyfed-Powys Police and Nottingham Police have issued just 50 fines each, while Northumbria Police have issued just 20.
Some forces don’t seem to prioritize APK evasion, Halfords says.
Metropolitan Police and Merseyside Police – responsible for some of the UK’s largest cities – were unable to provide data on penalties for expired MOTs.
The Met stated that it “does not own this information.”
Thirty-one of the UK’s 45 police forces responded to Halfords’ freedom of information request.
Together they have issued only 16,931 fines for circumventing the MOT. This amounts to an average of about 500 fines per police force.
This suggests that police only caught 0.01 percent of people taking their car for a spin without a MOT – with 99.99 percent getting away with breaking the law.
Eight of the 31 corps have handed out fewer than 150 fines and three have handed out 50 or less.
Halfords suggested that the government takes driving without a VED (car tax) more seriously than expired MOTs because fine revenues go to the treasury
Halfords’ research also found that drivers are more at risk of getting behind the wheel without a valid MOT than they are without tax or insurance. 50 percent).
Commenting on the findings of the study, Halfords CEO Graham Stapleton said: ‘The figures are alarming and a huge safety concern for all road users as MOTs are an important check on the roadworthiness of vehicles.
ANPR cameras are meant to automatically catch those who evade their MOT.
“But with some forces capturing only 20 people a year, it raises questions about how effectively this technology is being deployed or if it is being used at all to tackle APK evasion.
‘It also raises the question of why the government seems to take the collection of road tax more seriously than avoiding the MOT.
‘MOTs are directly related to vehicle safety. Road tax does not do that, but it does stimulate the treasury in the form of tax revenue.
“It could therefore be suggested that they prioritize tax collection over security – a large section of the public clearly believes this to be the case.”
Antony Kildare, CEO of road safety organization IAM RoadSmart, said he is surprised that not all police forces are taking the problem of driving without an MOT more seriously.
“Joint enforcement using all available databases should now be common practice and they should listen to UK motorists calling on them to catch more illegal drivers on our roads,” he said.
It is estimated that every 20 minutes someone is injured on UK roads by an uninsured driver and that more than a quarter of motorists don’t even know when their vehicle’s next MOT is due, while in the UK there are around 630,000 unlicensed vehicles.
“Getting lawbreakers off our roads would significantly reduce casualties caused by the minority of drivers who fail to heed their driving responsibilities.”
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