The police are the Motor Insurance Database's (MID) biggest customer, making over 2.5 million enquiries every month.  Their support is clearly vital to achieving MIB's objective of reducing uninsured driving, and being one of our key stakeholders, the MIB has a close working relationship with the police.  This page gives information on some of the initiatives aimed at improving police effectiveness in enforcement.

ANPR

The MIB, which runs the MID, provides British police forces with an extract of data showing potentially uninsured vehicles.

Data on these vehicles is used in conjunction with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras throughout GB police forces.  This means that if a vehicle passes an ANPR camera, it is likely to be stopped if it is not insured.  Trials have proved that an individual officer can make ten times more arrests using ANPR than was previously possible.

For more information about how ANPR cameras work please see this article Cameras always on duty.

MIB Police Helpline

The Police can seize any vehicle where they have reasonable grounds to believe it is uninsured.  To support the Police in the fight against uninsured driving, the MIB runs a dedicated Police Helpline.  This helpline supports ANPR camera enforcement and is designed to assist the Police with difficult roadside situations where there was doubt over the validity of insurance cover for a suspect vehicle stopped after carrying out a check on the MID.

According to police figures, by the end of 2007 in excess of 150,000 vehicles had been seized and approximately 40% were subsequently sold or destroyed.