just a hunch.

There cannot be that many cars caught with out of date / incorrect tax discs by visual inspection these days.

The cost of the paper tax disc must be greater than the benefit they provide.

Wheras ANPR is cheap & effective.




one knock on will be yet another nail in the coffin of the post office

No change to the Post Office really as you can renew on line anyway!

Won't there be an online database covering all cars with/without tax, MOT & insurance? Thereby they can just send out reminder letters/fines to the owners address.

I guess the problem comes when people don't complete and return the V5C new ownership form.

If so how come there are still an estimated1.2 million uninsured drivers on the road?

Nobody will have discs displayed that is the point! Perhaps there will be a grace period between the change of ownership and paying the tax, after all if you pay your tax mid month, it gets backdated anyway.

I don't think it's undesirable, would anybody report what they might think is an untaxed car anyway? I certainly wouldn't, I don't see a need to display a tax disc, I don't wear a badge to confirm I've payed my national insurance! I think it should be abolished though, there is no need for it, it's just a tax for no reason.

Thus making the government more filthy lucre off the beleaguered motorist!

I agree. I would imagine that the tax costs more to administer than it generates in revenue.

It costs like £280 to tax mine for a year, bit of paper and the administration costs like £5!

The piece of paper in the windscreen really is redundant. There are automatic fines sent out by DVLA for cars which are on the road or stored unless they are taxed or SORN'd so they know without seeing the bit of paper. I think the offence of failing to display is still in place though. There have been a few local cars clamped recently by either DVLA or VoSA for not having tax or SORN and not released until a fine and back road tax has been paid. So, there are controls in place. There is a variation in this if the vehicle has been transferred to a motor trader or registered scrapper who retains the reg doc, they can hold that vehicle untaxed or without a SORN until sold or broken up. Where things go a bit nails up is that there is no automatic DVLA connection to the insurance database so whilst they know a vehicle is taxed or not as the case may be they have no idea if it has current insurance. In fact, if it is taxed then the vehicle does not need insurance if does not go onto public land.
In theory, an untaxed car is allowed on the highway if operated on trade plates or is driving to and from a booked MoT test. It does need insurance though.

How is it that your vehicle is checked for MoT and insurance when you renew your tax online? is it just a one off query to confirm that insurance is in place?

Excise duty data held by DVLA, Insurance by the Insurance database. Mot held by Vosa.
The three sets of data are not held as a single database I'm pretty sure but there must be a relationship or the ANPR would not work nor the online taxing.

My point was they must have a way of querying the insurance database when they need it.

Indeed they do! The Motor Insurance Bureau operate the Motor Insurance Database -which is actively used by the Police and DVLC. Check it out by not renewing your insurance and trying to tax your car via on line service!

These days you don't need all the data in one database, just some good search engines and a bit of compatibility. Bringing the DVLC record, putting MOTs on line and linking with a newly created Insurance database so that not only the Police could search by just typing the registration no, but us punters could renew on line or by auto phone was a very successful Government project! One they are rightly proud of.

One scam that was knocked on the head by the computerisation of the MoT test was clocking. The new document provided when you get your pass ticket shows previous test mileages so it is simple to check that there are no anomilies.

To a point.. you can still clock the car, if you do 20 k between MOTs but only register 8k....

How?

Drive 20000 miles the adjust the odometer back 12000 miles before you take it for the MOT!

That's not clocking in the true meaning of the word. Clocking means winding back the speedo. In the old days, unscrupulous vendors would remove the speedo and turn back the number rollers. To-day, the display is digital. It could be done through the ECU with a dealer reader but normally, even if a new ECU is fitted, the dealer will reset the speedo to the original mileage.
However it's done, it will now be recorded on the DVLA system, that is why it is important to check what the tester has input as there is a time limit on getting it rectified.
What you are suggesting is disconnecting your speedo. That is not so simple on most modern cars as the speedo pick up is normally electronic via the ECU. Mine comes from the ABS system for instance.

Thank you, I did wonder!