Police catch very few drivers driving without a valid MOT, reports Fund

A valid TÜV certificate is required by law for cars driving on our roads. But a shocking number of motorists admit to driving without one, a new report has found.

A survey of 2,006 motorists found that almost a quarter (24 percent) said they had driven a vehicle without a valid MOT in the past year.

This would equate to around 9.3 million drivers when extrapolated to the UK driver population.

However, police have handed out fewer than 17,000 fines over the same period, suggesting that many drivers behind the wheel of engines without a valid MOT go uncaught and with impunity.

Annual tests 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 have their first TÜV when they reach the third year and are then – by law – obliged to be tested annually thereafter.

However, ministers are considering extending the initial test to a car’s fourth year and expanding the requirement to every two years thereafter.

The controversial proposal has drawn MOT criticism from many automobile associations, road safety groups and the broader workshop industry.

But this new research from Halfords suggests that many drivers are already ignoring the current mandatory MOT schedules – and are not being penalized for doing so.

The survey found that while some drivers admitted to using non-MOT cars for one-off trips, many said they did so as a habit.

Those who admit they’ve driven a vehicle without an MOT in the past year said they’ve done so an average of 10.6 times — totaling 99.2 million illegal trips, according to the report.

When a car’s MOT expires, this is automatically identified by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency database.

This information is accessible to anyone with your number plate and could be prosecuted.

If police are equipped with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras in patrol cars, they can easily identify vehicles without a valid certificate.

If you drive a car without a valid MOT you can be fined up to £1,000.

If you drive a vehicle found to be ‘dangerous’ by an MOT test, you can be fined up to £2,500, a driving ban and three penalty points.

While motorists cannot renew their motor vehicle excise tax (Automobile Tax) without a valid MOT certificate, many drivers could still remain on their tax for weeks or months but the car’s MOT has expired.

Although police have access to Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology, which allows them to quickly determine if a vehicle is taxed and insured and has a valid MOT inspection, the armed forces only catch a small number of drivers without current ones Certification.

In fact, only two police forces (West Yorkshire and Suffolk) have issued more than 1,000 fines in the last 12 months.

For most it was significantly less.

For example, Dyfed-Powys and Nottingham police forces each issued just 50 fines, while Northumbria police only issued 20.

Some forces don’t appear to prioritize MOT bypass, Halfords says.

The Metropolitan Police and Merseyside Police – covering some of the UK’s largest cities – were unable to provide data on penalties for expired MOTs.

The Met stated that it “does not possess this information”.

Thirty-one of the 45 police forces across the UK responded to Halfords’ Freedom of Information request.

Between them, they only issued 16,931 fines for MOT evasion. This results in an average of around 500 fines per police station.

This suggests that police only caught about 0.01 percent of people driving their cars without an MOT – with 99.99 percent getting away with breaking the law.

Eight of the 31 forces issued fewer than 150 fines and three issued fifty or fewer fines.

Halfords’ survey also found that drivers are more likely to risk getting behind the wheel without a valid MOT than not having tax or insurance – the main reason they say this is because they feel they have “less likely to be caught” if they skip their MOT (50 percent).

Commenting on the findings of the survey, Graham Stapleton, CEO of Halfords said: “The figures are worrying and pose a major safety concern for all road users as MOTs are an important check of a vehicle’s roadworthiness.

“ANPR cameras are designed to automatically capture those who avoid their MOT.

“However, with some forces only catching 20 individuals per year, this raises questions about how effectively this technology is being used, or if it is even being used to avoid MOT.

“It also raises the question of why the government seems to take vehicle tax collection more seriously than circumvention of the MOT.

“The TÜVs relate directly to vehicle safety. The motor vehicle tax does not do this, but strengthens the state coffers in the form of tax revenue.

“It could therefore be suggested that they prioritize tax collection over safety – much of the public clearly believes that is the case.”

Antony Kildare, CEO of road safety organization IAM RoadSmart, said he was surprised that not all police forces are taking the problem of driving without an MOT more seriously.

“Joint enforcement using all available databases should be standard practice by now and they should be listening to UK motorists urging 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, compared to around 630,000 unregistered ones in the UK vehicles exist.

“Getting lawbreakers off our streets would greatly reduce the number of casualties caused by the minority of drivers who fail to heed their responsibilities as drivers.”