British drivers pay-out £35 million in fines for forgetting to do THIS simple thing

British motorists have collectively been fined more than £35million for forgetting to renew their MoT in time, it has been revealed.

Thanks to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to 45 police forces across the UK, it was revealed that since 2012 motorists have been hit with 424,316 penalties for driving without a valid MoT certificate. 

In 2013, the fine for an out-of-date MoT certificate was increased from £60 to £100. 

However, these fines can spiral to more than £1,000 if drivers are taken to court over the offence.

In total, 36 police services replied to the FOI request sent by CarBuyer. 

These statistics revealed that police forces earn on average £7.5million from MoT related fines. 

Police services use a combination of information supplied by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) and ANPR cameras to fine motorists with out-of-date MoTs. 

Of those who replied to the FOI request, West Yorkshire Police issued the largest amount of penalties, serving a whopping 121,000 penalties since 2012.

West Yorkshire was followed by Metropolitan Police of London, who handed out 64,000 penalties over the same period of time. 

A spokesman from West Yorkshire Police said: “Driving a vehicle without a valid MoT is taken seriously. 

“The proactive work that our officers continue to do shows that this is an unacceptable risk and as such anyone found without a valid MoT will be dealt with positively.”

Although some dealers offer automatic MoT reminders, there’s no central system in place like there is for Vehicle Excise Duty – which sees all motorists automatically sent an annual notification when their road tax is due.

The DVSA recently announced it’s working on one for MoTs, but said when this moves out of ‘beta’ testing, it’ll likely require drivers to sign up, rather than sending notifications automatically.

A DVSA spokesman said “We’re currently testing an MoT reminder service where initially vehicle owners can sign up to receive a reminder e-mail at four weeks and two weeks before their MoT is due.”

Earlier this year it was revealed that taking your MoT test early could see you land £2,500 in fines and three penalty points.