Aarrgh! MOT expired a month ago.

[Deleted User]

Not clever I know. MOT test arranged sharpish for tomorrow.

Can't believe I've been driving it around like this.

Although, is it true that insurance is invalidated or is this an urban myth? Has anyone ever been refused a claim on insurance because they forgot their mot?

In general, how do the police deal with this? I understand its £60 fixed penalty generally but how lenient are they?

Not using the car today anyway but I am allowed to drive to test station tomorrow? Is that right?

whatmichaelsays

You are allowed to drive to a pre-booked test as long as you drive there via a direct route (eg, you can't call to the shop or drop the wife off at work on the way there).

Stageshoot

If you have Pre booked the MOT for tomorrow you are covered for it,

It does not invalidate your insurance, but could causes issues with getting the full value if you had a claim.

As for getting stopped it will ping the ANPRs so a plod on the prowl would no doubt stop[ if nothing better to do, but on the bright side its a not a pointable offence

So basically take the bus today and drive to your MOT tomorrow with no fear.

Aretnap

It's basically an urban myth that having no MOT invalidates your insurance. Your insurance policy might include a clause which requires you to have a valid MOT (if your car requires one - not all cars do), but they can only refuse to pay a claim because of a breach of terms and conditions if the claim was connected to the breach.

So for example if your home insurance included a clause which said you had to lock your doors when the house was unoccupied, your insurer could refuse to pay for a burglary which happened when you left the house unlocked, but they wouldn't be able to refuse a claim for subsidence just because they found out that you'd once gone out without locking your front door.

Similarly if your insurance policy had a clause which required your car to be roadworthy and you had no working headlights your insurer could refuse to pay for damage you caused by driving into something in the dark, but not for an accident which happened in daylight.

In the case of MOT the lack of a piece of paper cannot cause an accident, so an insurer could never refuse a claim purely because you didn't have an MOT. They might be able to refuse to pay a claim if they could show that your car had a defect which would have been picked up by an MOT, and that the defect had caused the accident, or at least contributed to it.

Aretnap

whatmichaelsays wrote: »

You are allowed to drive to a pre-booked test as long as you drive there via a direct route (eg, you can't call to the shop or drop the wife off at work on the way there).

It's fine to do other things on the way, so long as the main purpose of the journey is to take the car to the MOT station. There was a case some years ago where the High Court ruled that a man who stopped for a newspaper and cigarettes on his way to the test station had not committed an offence. They pointed out that if the law was interpreted as only allowing you to drive directly to the test centre, it would be impossible to get petrol on the way, even if you didn't have enough petrol to get there. Similarly dropping someone off at work would be fine, so long as it didn't involve a significant detour.

Stoke

You're not the only person to make the mistake my friend. My grandmother who has now been diagnosed with alzheimer's and dementia had a car up until about 6 months ago. Just over a year ago, my dad was driving her to the supermarket and back every week, using her vehicle, because she was struggling to operate the car safely and was driving quite dangerously. On a wim, he had a look through the books and it turned out it was 3 months due. Very lucky not to get caught by an ANPR.