It is a legal requirement for cars driving on our roads to hold a valid MOT certificate. However, a shocking number of motorists are admitting to driving without one, according to a new report.
A survey of 2,006 drivers found that almost a quarter (24%) said they had driven a vehicle without a valid inspection in the past year.
This would equate to some 9.3 million motorists, if extrapolated to the whole UK driving population.
However, police issued less than 17,000 fines over the same period, suggesting that many drivers driving engines without valid MOTs are not caught or punished.
Some 24% of drivers surveyed by Halfords said they had driven their car on the road with an expired MOT certificate in the past 12 months. But his own investigation found that very few offenders were punished for it
Annual testing has become one of the main motoring news stories of 2023 since the government launched an MOT consultation in January as it plans to extend the period between technical checks.
Currently, all cars and vans have their first MOT when they reach their third year and are then – by law – required to be tested annually thereafter.
However, ministers are considering extending the initial check to a car’s fourth year and then extending the requirement to every two years.
The controversial proposal has drawn criticism of the MOT from numerous motoring organisations, road safety groups and the garage industry at large.
Yet this new survey by Halfords suggests that many drivers are already ignoring current MOT timetables – and going unpunished when they do.
The poll found that some drivers admitted to using non-MOT cars for one-off trips, many said they usually did.
Those who admit to having driven a vehicle without technical inspection in the past year say they have done so an average of 10.6 times, which equates to a total of 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 can be viewed by anyone with your license plate and could result in prosecution.
With police equipped with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras in patrol cars, they can easily identify vehicles without valid certificates.
You can be fined up to £1000 for driving a car without a valid inspection.
If you drive a vehicle deemed ‘unsafe’ by an MOT test, you can be fined up to £2,500, banned from driving and given three penalty points.
Although motorists are unable to renew their vehicle excise duty (car tax) without a valid MOT certificate, many drivers could still have weeks or months remaining on their tax, but the MOT of the car has expired.
You can be fined up to £1000 for driving a car without a valid inspection. If you drive an engine that has an existing ‘dangerous’ fault identified in an MOT test, you can be fined up to £2,500, banned from driving and given three penalty points
Although police have access to ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) technology that can help them quickly identify if a vehicle is taxed, insured and has a valid MOT, forces only catch a small number of drivers without an up-to-date certificate.
In fact, only two police forces (West Yorkshire and Suffolk) have issued more than 1,000 fines in the last 12 months.
For the most part it was much less.
For example, Dyfed-Powys and Nottingham police forces only issued 50 fines each, while Northumbria police only issued 20.
Some forces don’t seem to prioritize MOT evasion, Halfords says.
The Metropolitan Police and Merseyside Police – responsible for some of the UK’s largest cities – were unable to provide any penalty data for expired MOTs.
The Met said it “does not have this information”.
Thirty-one of the UK’s 45 police forces responded to Halfords Freedom of Information request.
Between them, they issued only 16,931 fines for avoiding the MOT. This equates to an average of approximately 500 fines per police force.
This suggests police only caught around 0.01% of people making a trip in their car without an MOT – 99.99% get away with breaking the law.
Eight of the 31 forces imposed less than 150 fines and three imposed fifty or less.
Halfords suggested the government take driving without VED (car tax) more seriously than expired MOTs, as revenue from fines goes to treasury coffers
The Halfords survey also found that drivers are more likely to get behind the wheel without a valid MOT rather than having no tax or insurance – the main reason they say this is because they feel that are “less likely to get caught” skipping their WORD (50 percent).
Commenting on the survey findings, Halfords CEO Graham Stapleton said: ‘The figures are worrying and a huge safety concern for all road users as MOTs are an important road quality check cars.
“ANPR cameras are meant to automatically catch those who avoid their MOT.
“But with some forces catching as few as 20 people a year, it raises questions about the effectiveness of deploying this technology or whether it is being used to target MOT avoidance.
“It also raises the question of why the government seems to take road tax collection more seriously than MOT avoidance.
“MOTs are directly linked to vehicle safety. The road tax does not do this, but it swells state coffers in the form of tax revenue.
“So one could suggest that they prioritize tax collection over security – a large part of the public clearly thinks that is the case.”
Antony Kildare, CEO of road safety charity IAM RoadSmart, said he was surprised that all police forces weren’t taking the issue of driving without an MOT more seriously.
‘Applying all available databases together was meant to be common practice by now and they should listen to UK motorists calling on them to catch more illegal drivers on our roads,’ he said .
‘It is estimated that one person is injured every 20 minutes on UK roads by an uninsured driver and more than a quarter of motorists don’t even know when their vehicle’s next MOT is due, despite there being has around 630,000 unlicensed vehicles in the UK.
“Removing violators from our roads would significantly reduce the number of casualties caused by the minority of motorists who do not care about their motoring responsibilities.”
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