Report on roads policing operation V79

The Department for Transport (DfT), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) have published a joint report on a roads policing operation V79, a national police compliance check on motoring requirements for both drivers and vehicles supported by DfT and by Defra, which was conducted on March 31, 2006.

The operation involved the random stopping of nearly 6,000 vehicles (cars, motorcycles and light goods vehicles), which police checked for compliance on driver licensing, vehicle registration, road tax, insurance and MOT.

In addition, the police checked for stolen vehicles, those being driven with a SORN in force, and illegal number plates.

Statistics in the report show that of the 5793 vehicles and drivers checked on March 31, 2006:

• 71.6 per cent were fully compliant.
• 28.4 per cent were found to be non-compliant in at least one area.
• 7.0 per cent were found to be non-compliant in at least one area of serious non-compliance.
• Insurance and driving licence offences had the highest number of additional serious offences.
• 33.3 per cent of unlicensed drivers were also uninsured for the vehicle they were driving (0.5 per cent of all drivers stopped).
• The identity of the driver was not confirmed in 1.0 per cent of the checks (an improvement on the 2004 check (3.1 per cent)).
• 3.4 per cent of driver records were found to be inaccurate (an improvement on the 2004 check (4.7 per cent)).
• 3.7 per cent of vehicles stopped had the wrong vehicle keeper recorded on the DVLA register (an improvement on the 2004 check (5.5 per cent)).
• 0.3 per cent of vehicles stopped had been declared as off-road (a decrease from the 2004 check (1.2 per cent)).
• 84.9 per cent of drivers were on the drivers` insurance database, the majority of which (99.3 per cent) held the correct details.
• 92.4 per cent of vehicles were on the insurance database.
• 5.4 per cent of vehicles had illegal registration plates.
• Older vehicles were less likely to have a current MOT, less likely to have accurate vehicle records, less likely to be insured and more likely to be untaxed.

Findings from the operation also show that drivers/vehicles were less likely to be compliant if they were in the following groups:

• Motorcycle or light goods vehicle.
• Male.
• Driven on a motorway.
• Vehicles less than one year old.

Drivers/vehicles were more likely to be compliant if they were in the following groups:

• Cars.
• Female.
• Driven on an urban road.
• Driven between 8am-9am or 1pm-2pm.

The report recommends that a further exercise should be carried out in 18 to 24 months time, in order that levels of compliance can be compared.

It also includes several other recommendations, the majority of which relate to changes to the operational procedures to be adopted in future operations.

The report can be found in full at http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_roads/documents/divisionhomepage/612495.hcsp