Am I insured? does my car have an MOT?

[falkor]

can you check this online?

well there are T+Cs! for checking insurance online ....

I am entitled to the insurance information about the vehicle detailed above for one or more of the following reasons: It is either registered/ owned/ insured by me or my employer; I am permitted to drive it; I am an Insurance Broker or agent and acting on behalf of my client.
I understand it is an offence to wrongfully obtain information of this nature without any of the above reasonable causes. If I fail to provide true reasons for acquiring this information I may be committing an offence of unlawfully obtaining data contrary to section 55 of the Data protection Act 1998. I declare that the information provided will not be used for any purposes unrelated to this enquiry.

for checking whether a car has an MOT

You asked for test history information for vehicle registration A123ABC. You provided test number 12345678912345 to confirm that you had a legitimate interest in the vehicle. If you do not have a legitimate interest in the vehicle you must destroy the document. This information is correct at 08/06/14

so in both cases any person can check insurance and MOT online provided that they have a legitimate interest in the vehicle

[powdermonkey]

falkor,

That's very interesting about the obtaining of insurance details for another vehicle. I always understood that if an individual wanted the insurance details of another vehicle, they'd have to make the request via their own insurance company, as the only reason for doing do would be to make a claim. I suppose, if you had been hit, as a pedestrian, by a fail to stop driver, then you wouldn't necessarily be contacting your own insurance company as you would if it was two vehicles colliding.

I followed the link you provided to the Motor Insurance Database (MID) website, and there's a link regarding insurance enquiries about vehicles other than your own. An enquiry costs just £4.00 which seems very reasonable. I'm going to pass this website's name to my neighbour, as her daughter was involved in a FTS RTC & the police don't seem to be particularly interested, even though she suffered injury, albeit very minor.

[Bert Moffat]

I'm going to pass this website's name to my neighbour, as her daughter was involved in a FTS RTC & the police don't seem to be particularly interested, even though she suffered injury, albeit very minor.

Why?

Surely her insurance company will pursue the claim, so why should she do their work and pay money to do it?

[powdermonkey]

I'm going to pass this website's name to my neighbour, as her daughter was involved in a FTS RTC & the police don't seem to be particularly interested, even though she suffered injury, albeit very minor.

Why?

Surely her insurance company will pursue the claim, so why should she do their work and pay money to do it?

Because, given what my neighbour's already said about the police's response, she doesn't have much confidence in them releasing the information and it will do no harm in her taking this route as well as the insurance company making enquiries.

[Bert Moffat]

But surely she has the VRM?

[powdermonkey]

I'm not sure. She got a partial VRM but I believe a witness got the full VRM. Apparently the police did trace the vehicle, have so far declined to give her any information other than it lives local, has insurance but haven't visited the driver or seen the car, haven't issued a 28 day notice to provide details of the driver but just sent a letter giving him 7 days to respond and left her, a lone female, to sort out her car which was partially blocking a road.
Her parents aren't very happy with the police response or lack of it and have a number of questions, some of which are "Was he over the limit/unfit through drugs and why wasn't that checked at the time?", "who was the driver (who may not necessarily be the registered keeper/owner) and was he insured?" "Did the driver have a licence?"
Neighbour tells me they're sending in a letter of complaint, with copies to the Chief Constable and the PCC.

[Bert Moffat]

But if she hasn't got the VRM then she cannot do the check can she?

If she has got the VRM let the insurance company do what they are paid for.

Your story is very confusing and sounds like you had best stay out of it.

[falkor]

An enquiry costs just £4.00 which seems very reasonable. I'm going to pass this website's name to my neighbour, as her daughter was involved in a FTS RTC & the police don't seem to be particularly interested.

So for £4 you can get an enquiry done on any vehicle? As you say, that sounds reasonable and worth knowing! You say the Police don't seem to be particularly interested, well the problem there, is that Police have a "legal time limit" to complete their enquiries in such cases, generally SIX MONTHS - after which summonses cannot be applied for, unless Police did not know the offender's address etc

Accident Process Units typically have hundreds and hundreds of accident cases to "investigate" and could take many months in any 1 particular case, right up to the 6 months in fact to arrive at a decision or to obtain a decision from CPS, all this could slow down the way they update the people who reported the accident in the first place, who are sometimes left wondering "what's going on" for many weeks if not months. The responsibility of these Accident Process Units includes providing to each party involved in the accident, the name and address of the vehicle owner, plus if different the name and address of the vehicle driver.

You say she suffered injury, albeit very minor. Most Police Forces that I know of will only take Accident Reports that involve collisions where name and addresses were not exchanged. But most Police Forces add an exception where Injury was sustained. So if Injury has occurred whether name and addresses were exchanged or not, they will investigate the accident.

Your story is very confusing and sounds like you had best stay out of it.

Delivered with the usual Bert Moffat charm, I don't find it very confusing but I am wondering whether the advice given came from the Police Control Room or the Accident Process Unit or a combination of both.

[powdermonkey]

I understand what you mean by Bert's "bedside manner" but he does have a point. The advice I gave to the neighbour was to list the various questions/complaints in a letter. Other than, I don't want to get involved.