New Road Tax display rules

Nikkisun

AdrianC wrote: »

The rules only changed last December. I'd guess this April's went smoothly...?

Thinking back I was on leave when the April discs were applied for this year so my experience is from before the change!

I like the fact that I don't have to make sure 200 tax discs are in the correct vehicles across the county - although I'm running a book on when I get the first phone call from someone saying 'my tax has run out and you haven't sent me a new one'!

Johno100

londonTiger wrote: »

it makes perfect sense, the tax disc contingent of insurance and mot was an archaic way of ensuring there weren't any uninsured, un-motd and obviously untaxed vehicles on the road.

Nope, it only meant that the vehicle was insured and MOT'd on the day the tax disc was purchased, six or nine months later it's anybody's guess.

And just because the vehicle had what appeared to be a valid tax disc didn't necessarily mean it was taxed. A friend of mine purchased a car privately with a supposed 6 months tax on it. But unknown to him, at the point of sale the seller had applied for a refund of the tax whilst declaring the disc as lost/stolen. So my mate was driving around in car with what appeared to be a valid tax but it was untaxed.

BeenThroughItAll

redux wrote: »

That doesn't prove that it checked the insurance.

I have two vehicles but only one at a time in use. I wanted to swap the other day, and briefly looked at taxing online. It cleared the checks even though I hadn't yet changed the insurance over. I didn't buy though. At the post office next morning she said they'd been told they no longer needed to check insurance.

All the information on gov webpages now says it will check the MOT on application, or in the new direct debit scheme it will continue to charge while there is a valid MOT. The only mentions of checking insurance as well refer only to Northern Ireland.

They do check. See post 51.

Nikkisun

According to the DVLA website they don't check when you apply but there are checks done.

Insurance & MOT/GVT Checking


Do I need to insure my vehicle?
Yes. It is a legal requirement to insure your vehicle if the vehicle is used or kept on the public road.


How do DVLA check insurance?
For vehicles registered to a GB address regular checks for valid insurance are made through Continuous Insurance Enforcement (CIE). For vehicles registered to a Northern Ireland address when the vehicle is taxed the vehicle's insurance is electronically checked with the motor insurance industry's database in accordance with Northern Ireland legislation.


What is CIE?
For vehicles registered to a GB address CIE identifies potentially uninsured vehicles by regularly comparing the DVLA's vehicle register and the motor insurance industry's database, which holds details of all motor insurance policies. The registered keeper of a vehicle that appears to be uninsured could face a fixed penalty, court prosecution, or the vehicle could be clamped, impounded or destroyed.

londonTiger

londonTiger wrote: »

it makes perfect sense, the tax disc contingent of insurance and mot was an archaic way of ensuring there weren't any uninsured, un-motd and obviously untaxed vehicles on the road.
.

Johno100 wrote: »

Nope, it only meant that the vehicle was insured and MOT'd on the day the tax disc was purchased, six or nine months later it's anybody's guess.

And just because the vehicle had what appeared to be a valid tax disc didn't necessarily mean it was taxed. A friend of mine purchased a car privately with a supposed 6 months tax on it. But unknown to him, at the point of sale the seller had applied for a refund of the tax whilst declaring the disc as lost/stolen. So my mate was driving around in car with what appeared to be a valid tax but it was untaxed.

You can always find exceptions in anything. I'm talking from a meta level. before ANPR and live database checks the only way to ensure motorists stuff was in order was to ensure motorist has everything else in order before issuing a tax disc which was a visible sign.

SURE there are some people who will have expired insurance after getting a 12 month tax disc. But at a meta level, it reduces the overall number of uninsured and unmoted cars.

One quick look at an expired tax disc would give anyone suspicion to probe further. You do not need to be sherlock holmes to work that one out.

AdrianC

londonTiger wrote: »

One quick look at an expired tax disc would give anyone suspicion to probe further. You do not need to be sherlock holmes to work that one out.

A couple of things I think you've missed.

Who's doing that "quick look"? Bear in mind that ANPR is very widely used, both mobile on police cars and static sites on trunk routes. So that leaves passing PC Plod on the beat to look at tax discs in windscreens. Except that not only does the tax disc NOT say anything other than the car had MOT and insurance 11 months before, perhaps under a different owner, but tax discs are trivially easy to forge.

The presence of tax but no insurance is ALREADY followed-up automatically under the continuous insurance rules, without any need for the car to be seen by anybody.

The lack of a valid tax disc on display is not, with online taxing giving a grace period, any kind of guarantee that the car is not legal, either. Even after that, failure to display is a trivial administrative offence. No more than that.

Tilt

Problem is that ANPR or the DVLA records don't sometimes catch owners who havn't paid the duty. Some (as I've pointed out many times) will buy a second hand car and give false details to the DVLA. They will find the new system easier for them to getaway with paying because they only get caught when they are stopped by the police OR clamped by the DVLA. I live on the Isle of Wight and there is no regular DVLA presence here. Neither has the DVLA installed any ANPR cameras to replace the tax disc (they claim that it will in future "police" untaxed cars using ANPR technology). This threat of clamping un-taxed cars and then crushing them are simply just that... threats. It dosn't move the hardened motorist who chooses not to abide by the rules and these people will multiply after October 1st.

[Deleted User]

ANPR is mostly on motorways, busy A roads, intersections, etc. One could quite easily drive around town to the shops and back with no insurance or tax without getting caught for years. I hardly ever see a police car with ANPR around my town either.

AdrianC

If you really think a round piece of paper prevents the real scumbags driving unregistered cars...

YEARS ago, I had a tax disc nicked from my car. Eventually, the Police found it. It'd been "edited", but still didn't match the car it was found in.

Car_54

Deleted_User wrote: »

I hardly ever see a police car with ANPR around my town either.

How would you recognise one?