It is illegal to drive a car in the UK without a valid MOT certificate unless you are driving the vehicle to or from an MOT test station or to or from a garage where it is booked in to have work carried out that caused the vehicle to fail the previous MOT.

There is a national vehicle database which stores information such as MOT’s, insurance tax meaning that the police and DVLA have quick and easy access to this information when needed. The DVLA do checks every month to see if a car has a valid MOT certificate and any that don’t are instantly sent to the ANPR of the police vehicle. If a vehicle with no MOT drives past or is spotted in a car fitted with an ANPR camera it will automatically flag up to the police who can then stop the vehicle to carry out checks. Sometimes the systems can take 24 hours to update so if your car has just passed the MOT it may be that it flags up on an ANPR camera and you will need to prove that the car has a valid MOT.