Uninsured Drivers

[fiction-factory]

A thread last night about a driver killing pedestrians while he was playing with his phone got sidetracked by discussions about drivers without tax, MOT, insurance. We know you can check tax and insurance details of a car on line from askmid but the site asks you to declare that you own have a n interest in the car- you aren't supposed to just check neighbours' cars for example.
Anyway some insisted you could ignore that and check anyway if you felt someone was driving without insurance.
So my query is- what would you do with the information if it confirmed the car wasn't insured. Would the police act on a tip off ? (I saw something that said the police won't accept info you get from askmid).

[fiction-factory]

Missed a bit- you check tax on line with DVLC/directgov, insurance with askmid.
Would the police also act on a tax tip off?

[Electrochem]

Whilst I disagree with the fact that you have to state that you have an interest in finding if a vehicle is insured, by ignoring the Data Protection element, you are committing a criminal offence. Why not just 'phone the police and say that you think someone is driving without insurance? I'm sure they will follow it up. As for VED, that is something you can report to DVLA. The police would not be interested.

[ToraToraTora]

yes it is technically illegal to tick that box without an actual definable interest but no one really takes any notice. Police have anonymous email addresses etc if you want to report it but if a car is uninsured then it will eventually get read by the increasing number of ANPR readers anyway.

[Peter Pedant]

different DPA rules if you are investigating a criminal offence
actually i am not sure it is .... ( a crime in itself to access data to prevent crime) - and anyway in England it is still admissible ( technically doesnt come under the exemptions of s78 of the relevant act [I think])
and 3T is right in real life - no one gives a tuss.
jesus have you tried the drugs hotline ? my advice is to save your breath

and from the first post
what about tax crime
ah I do know the answer to that ....
HMRC and make it anonymous ..... the tax authorities only look at anonymous allegations apparently - but of course not every one

( I was dobbed in for housing benefit fraud no less than five times by the same neighbour whose sister worked at the council. She couldnt get over the idea that there was no fraud - o and she wasnt keen on me either. In the end we wrote to the council and said "look we know what is going on, and we regard the repeated investigation without result as inappropriate"....)

[fiction-factory]

sorry PP- was referring to car tax.
I asked because I got mocked by one poster on another thread about Polish uninsured drivers driving un MOT'd cars when I expressed reservations about the suggestion to check up on the askmid database in order to catch them out- I said just tip off the police if you feel you know. Life's too short in my opinion to go checking up on neighbours' car tax/insurance.