Old Paper Tax Disc?

[timberwolf]

What happens after renewal, can I still leave the old tax disc on the windscreen, or could I be prosecuted for displaying an out of date tax disc (even if they are no longer required)?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes

If I haven't renewed my car tax yet, reading the above I think I can keep the paper tax disc on the car after 1st October? Has anyone removed and destroy their current tax disc?

[barrycoll]

According to a talk by the DVLA that I went to this week, all car tax checking will be done by Number Plate Recognition Systems. This system (apparently) catches far more 'offenders' than wardens scrutinizing paper tax discs.

You can personally check on any car on the DVLA website, to see whether tax status is Paid.

The tax disc is now no more than a collectors item

[Bibsy]

Took mine out on the morning of October 1st, not given it a thought since.

[FROSTYBALLS]

Renewed the tax on my Auris in September (due from 1st October), and took the tax disc holder out of the car on the morning of 1st October. Removed the tax disc from our Hyundai the same day - runs until 30th March 2015.

In the past the only time I've had tax queried was when I was driving Crown Exempt vehicles - which displayed a Crown Exempt notice in place of the tax disc - and Plod decided to check the Crown Exempt notice (vehicles didn't carry insurance either as any claim was settled directly by Treasury).

[korat102]

I carried out a ritual burning of my old tax disk...they still take your money, of course, but I now have a nice clear windscreen. It's quite surprising how many people still show their tax disk though.

[MEP's Yaris GS]

I removed mine, only because it was already a month out of date (couldn't be bothered to put replacement in for a month) and displaying the incorrect reg since I put my private plate on the car mid Sept. All the other cars in the household we've not bothered with removing them though.

[timberwolf]

I knew the old paper disc was going, but I hadn't given it any thought. I think many people will be leaving the tax disc in the car until they get the renewal notice and probably not bother removing the old one.

Curious about removing the disc at the earliest opportunity, when I used to pay substantially more, I never resented the little paper disc or the windscreen space it took. I certainly resented another tax, the hoops you had to jump through just to tax a car, but the tax still exists and the hoops maybe less, but still as pointless.

[johalareewi]

Mine runs out this month.

Got the renewal notice as usual and went online to pay £0.00.

At the end it says the DVLC won't be sending me anything to say that the tax has been paid.

Half way through the process, there is an option to request an email receipt (which I ticked).

So at least I have some proof that I have 'paid' my car tax.

It is still possible to take the form to the Post Office to pay the car tax.

You just won't be given a tax disc, but they will stamp the form to say you have paid.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

It's nice to have the email confirmation as it takes about 2 or 3 days to update on their system that you've renewed!?!

I don't know why you can't have an automatic renewal like they do with your car insurance unless you tell them otherwise. What's the point of us going on line to renew at £0. Waste of time.

[Lorna2]

I took mines off straight away. It was great to get the nice clear windscreen :) Most other drivers round here haven't bothered taking theirs off though.

[PeteB]

According to a talk by the DVLA that I went to this week, all car tax checking will be done by Number Plate Recognition Systems.

Since the proliferation of police car mounted and roadside ANPR cameras, I don't think Police, traffic wardens etc. have been checking tax discs on windscreens anyway.

Around March 2009, when I still had my 02 Gen 1 Prius, I popped into my dealer for Wiper Blades and the service manager offered to fit them while I had a coffee. When he returned he took me aside and quietly mentioned my tax disc expired the previous October!

Once home I checked my records and sure enough I'd paid online and had (as I routinely do) popped the tax disc through my scanner so I had a PDF image of it on my PC. I can only think I had a senior moment, possibly got interrupted when I went to the car to swap them, put the old one back on the windscreen and threw the new one away! Cost me £7.50 for a duplicate (was £15 a year for the disc on a Gen 1 Hybrid then, unless registered slightly earlier than mine when it would be £115 - much to the annoyance of many early adopters).

I'm sure if I'd done that a few years earlier it would have been picked up - I might have got a warning or, if unlucky, a fixed penalty for failure to display.

BTW the other way untaxed cars get picked up now is by the DVLA computers highlighting cars that have passed the expiry date and not renewed the tax or made a SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification) - this is automatically an offence.

useful info here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes inlcuding what to do if buying a car and a link to a page where you can check a vehcile and even report an untaxed vehicle - though this should be picked up anyway.

[MEP's Yaris GS]

It's nice to have the email confirmation as it takes about 2 or 3 days to update on their system that you've renewed!?!

From experience their system is updated instantly just as it always has been.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

It's nice to have the email confirmation as it takes about 2 or 3 days to update on their system that you've renewed!?!

From experience their system is updated instantly just as it always has been.

Then there must be an issue. Both mine and Mrs Cabbie have recently renewed and both times it took a few days to show.

https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax

[MEP's Yaris GS]

It's nice to have the email confirmation as it takes about 2 or 3 days to update on their system that you've renewed!?!

From experience their system is updated instantly just as it always has been.

Then there must be an issue. Both mine and Mrs Cabbie have recently renewed and both times it took a few days to show.

https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax

Interesting, has shown straight away for me. Are you checking using the old service or the Beta service out of interest?

[Parts-King]

I would imagine such a huge database would not show any detail instantly. It would be doing constant back ups and probably showing new information every few hours or even longer during periods of maintenance. I would always have a copy of the email receipt in the car just in case you are stopped. Interestingly I heard a discussion about how ANPR catches tens of thousands of people, well it may well do, but the DVLA has 10..........yes 10 cars on the road checking vehicles, they also use some BT Police vehicles too, but the low numbers shocked me, I thought they would have hundreds on the road??

[FROSTYBALLS]

Think the main responsibility for enforcement lies with the Police, and to a lesser extent Highways Agency - who have 500 ANPR cameras at fixed locations.

[Parts-King]

I'm not so sure the Police will be dealing with RFL issues alone, of course people who do not tax their car often don't insure or MOT it either. I would expect to see more joint agency enforcement in the future. We get a lot of those at a VOSA station on the A55, the main trunk route to / from Ireland

We see a lot of problems with cloned plates, I expect that to increase exponentially soon too

[MEP's Yaris GS]

I live in the sticks in East Anglia, and on a 50 mile round commute pass at least 3 fixed ANPR units each way on my trip, so there must be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of them on our roads, most of which you probably won't even notice. This on top of the police should be more than ample to catch those who haven't taxed their vehicles I'd have thought. Then there are those who can still report people should they wish.

[Parts-King]

That may be, but a fixed camera is not going to stop someone on the wrong side of the law. I can live with Police stopping me or anyone else, but I cannot see fixed cameras being any deterrent to criminals and low lives who will clone your car very readily

[MEP's Yaris GS]

That may be, but a fixed camera is not going to stop someone on the wrong side of the law. I can live with Police stopping me or anyone else, but I cannot see fixed cameras being any deterrent to criminals and low lives who will clone your car very readily

True, although base up-on how many cloned cars were detected through having an invalid disk on the screen, which although assuming, I suspect is very low, I can't see this recent change causing it to become any more common practise.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

That may be, but a fixed camera is not going to stop someone on the wrong side of the law. I can live with Police stopping me or anyone else, but I cannot see fixed cameras being any deterrent to criminals and low lives who will clone your car very readily

True, although base up-on how many cloned cars were detected through having an invalid disk on the screen, which although assuming, I suspect is very low, I can't see this recent change causing it to become any more common practise.

Don't cloned car reg number set off an alarm too, assuming the original owner reported the theft of their number plates to the police. The down side is that the innocent original owner will also get stopped when passing ANPR cameras. A small price to pay in the scheme of things. Doesn't help those who have had a dodgy dealer create a plate out of thin air, but I think that's more your professional tea leaf rather than some dodgy geezer not wanting to pay for insurance.

And to answer others who say there are only 10 ANPR cameras about. Our local Police have theirs on main (and sometimes not so main) routes into my town and are often pulling over cars - usually a 15 year old Corsa or Carina E or similar. Occasionally it's a surprisingly new car too.

[timberwolf]

That may be, but a fixed camera is not going to stop someone on the wrong side of the law. I can live with Police stopping me or anyone else, but I cannot see fixed cameras being any deterrent to criminals and low lives who will clone your car very readily

True, although base up-on how many cloned cars were detected through having an invalid disk on the screen, which although assuming, I suspect is very low, I can't see this recent change causing it to become any more common practise.

Don't cloned car reg number set off an alarm too, assuming the original owner reported the theft of their number plates to the police. The down side is that the innocent original owner will also get stopped when passing ANPR cameras. A small price to pay in the scheme of things. Doesn't help those who have had a dodgy dealer create a plate out of thin air, but I think that's more your professional tea leaf rather than some dodgy geezer not wanting to pay for insurance.

And to answer others who say there are only 10 ANPR cameras about. Our local Police have theirs on main (and sometimes not so main) routes into my town and are often pulling over cars - usually a 15 year old Corsa or Carina E or similar. Occasionally it's a surprisingly new car too.

How exactly does an owner get stopped when passing an ANPR camera, does the camera have legs and robot arms to nab you? :)

Or more likely does the unsuspecting victim get a letter in the post 15 days later.

Or perhaps worse a dawn raid, a broken front door and six bullets in the head? Oh, mistakes will happen, those in authority will wring their hands in public (for the TV interviews at least), there will be unconvincing apologies, there will be demands for an inquiry (at tax payers expense and ultimately useless), but no one in any of these organisations ever losses their jobs. All because it was harmless for agencies to share information, a small price to pay until it happens to you and remember you've got nothing to fear if you are innocent...

[Parts-King]

Stealing of plates is not the problem, the illegal number plate makers just make a set with no proper checks in place. Criminal gangs who steal cars, look out for identical cars, make a note of the LEGAL registration number, get a set of plates made and put them on the STOLEN car. Nobody is alerted until the innocent driver starts getting speeding fines, parking fines, congestion charging notices in the post

Regulations regarding number plate design were recently tightened up again, and the reason being so that the ANPR cameras would pick them up better. These cameras cannot pick up the wrong font or spacing (or not very well) so lots of boy racers get away with breaking the law because a camera picks them up, but it cannot recognise the number. So for me static cameras are a waste of time, except for those who have nothing to worry about

[PeteB]

The static cameras do provide some of the input that's used when you go past a police car mounted or roadside ANPR camera.

They can also provide retrospective data that can track criminals, like the London bombings in 2005 where they tracked the movements of the car that the bombers had left at Luton railway station.

The roadside ones are often supported by a number of car and motorcycle cops who stop people who get flagged up or who have illegal format number plates. I was once told that these cameras check about 26 databases, including tax, insurance, mot, stolen, outstanding convictions (for registered keeper), "of interest to Police", of interest to other Government authorities and so on.

Some years ago, when ANPR was new, I heard a single Police car with roof mounted cameras drove up and down every aisle in all of the Luton Airport car parks in 30 minutes and turned up 4 stolen cars that had probably been there some time. It was said that to do a similar exercise with a team of bobbies on foot would have taken several days.

[MEP's Yaris GS]

That may be, but a fixed camera is not going to stop someone on the wrong side of the law. I can live with Police stopping me or anyone else, but I cannot see fixed cameras being any deterrent to criminals and low lives who will clone your car very readily

True, although base up-on how many cloned cars were detected through having an invalid disk on the screen, which although assuming, I suspect is very low, I can't see this recent change causing it to become any more common practise.

Don't cloned car reg number set off an alarm too, assuming the original owner reported the theft of their number plates to the police. The down side is that the innocent original owner will also get stopped when passing ANPR cameras. A small price to pay in the scheme of things. Doesn't help those who have had a dodgy dealer create a plate out of thin air, but I think that's more your professional tea leaf rather than some dodgy geezer not wanting to pay for insurance.

And to answer others who say there are only 10 ANPR cameras about. Our local Police have theirs on main (and sometimes not so main) routes into my town and are often pulling over cars - usually a 15 year old Corsa or Carina E or similar. Occasionally it's a surprisingly new car too.

How exactly does an owner get stopped when passing an ANPR camera, does the camera have legs and robot arms to nab you? :)

Or more likely does the unsuspecting victim get a letter in the post 15 days later.

Or perhaps worse a dawn raid, a broken front door and six bullets in the head? Oh, mistakes will happen, those in authority will wring their hands in public (for the TV interviews at least), there will be unconvincing apologies, there will be demands for an inquiry (at tax payers expense and ultimately useless), but no one in any of these organisations ever losses their jobs. All because it was harmless for agencies to share information, a small price to pay until it happens to you and remember you've got nothing to fear if you are innocent...

ANPR won't stop a car, but then again neither do fixed speed cameras, but they work. They'll simply issue fines, or tell the DVLA the car is being used, and if they wish they'll send someone / company to collect and tow the vehicle before crushing it. They've now the power to remove a vehicle from private land if they've evidence it's been used on the road and not correctly taxed.