how do the police know, and why?

balletshoes

I apologise if this is a stupid question in advance.

A friend of my OH bought my car on Thursday, I filled in the transfer details and gave him the tear-off showing he is the new keeper.
On Friday morning he phoned his insurance company to tell them he wants to be insured for my car (now his car) from that date, Friday. They say thats fine, sort it out for him, and tell him its valid, he's happy.
On Friday evening, he drives the car north from the Midlands to Scotland (where he works). Somewhere near Manchester, the police pull him over and question him about the car - who did he buy it from, is it his car, is he insured to drive it? He answers their questions, and they let him go.

I guess my question is, why would the police pull him over, how would they know which cars to look out for, and what information would they have got to alert them to particular cars (I'm guessing ones where insurance has been cancelled etc?).

Just pondering - I'd have been ca*king myself!

SCO

The ANPR camera (sits on top of the blue lights) reads the number plate and that searches the PNC for tax, insurance and MOT.

Buellguy

Might not have been on the MID database but they were happy with his response about insurance

vikingaero

The Police can add markers to the database which shows if the car is known to be used in burglaries, drugs etc.

karatepet

takes a few days for them to update.I have just changed my insurance and their data base was showing uninsured for 3 days.

ado

I would imagine that there was something about his driving which caused the Police to pull him over. ANPR info is only going to 'ping' if there is a marker or if something is missing such as insurance, so I doubt if they stopped him because he'd only just bought the car. Once they had stopped him they'd either cross reference him with the ANPR or PNC (police national computer) info and check our his info.

BTW I once crewed up with a local IRV (immediate response) driver equipped with an ANPR camera. Well over 200 cars passed us before one pinged so we duly stopped it only to find that he had genuinely only just bought the car so he was insured so everything checked out.

1940sGal

I don't think every police car is fitted with the ability to check on cars. I'm talking from experience because during the summer my sister got mixed up with when the MOT was due and when she realised, we then realised we had been driving around without a valid MOT for about 3 weeks And I know for sure I passed several police cars in that time!

ado

1940sGal wrote: »

I don't think every police car is fitted with the ability to check on cars.

In my area 4 out of 24 cars have ANPR cameras on board.

sun-n-moon

I think it's only traffic cars that are equipped. My sons a response officer and as far as I know none of the vehicles he uses are equipped with it. There are also the blue cameras on certain roads and motorways that are ANPR and they relay the details.

TrickyWicky

balletshoes wrote: »

I'd have been ca*king myself!

I wouldn't. If you've done nothing wrong then they can't realistically bust you for it (they may still try but they'll have a hard time doing so).

I bought a car a couple of years ago up in blackpool. Insured it that day over the phone, hung up, rang the insurers back to double check it was insured etc...

Picked up the car, coming along the M55 I think it was and got tugged by a rozzer I'd seen checking out the car while I was in the petrol station. Sure enough, he thought I was uninsured and gave me one hell of a grilling. I simply told him everything he wanted to know (and more) and he eventually gave up and had to let me go saying he couldn't ring the insurers at that time of night to check so he'd check in the morning. He was almost livid by the time I'd finished with him as he knew he wasn't gonna bust me and I think he'd been hoping he'd caught an easy one :rotfl:

Its when you have a neighbour who's a plod.. you know they're one of those "by the book" types that you have to watch out.. A car we bought years ago had some slightly questionable issues he knew of and I found myself getting followed down a major A road one day. I knew there was a farm shop coming up so indicated I was pulling in and just gradually slowed down and turned into their car park. Plod just stopped in the middle of the road watching me while holding up other traffic before driving off.