MOT status check: a five minute business case

I have just written this business case in five minutes. Go on, knock it over!

Problem:

Millions of people have no idea when their MOT expires. If they’re lucky, their local garage sends them a reminder based on the last test date. But mostly they have to rely on a piece of paper in a filing drawer at home.

So they let them lapse, leading to compliance problems affecting insurance, enforcement, automated renewal of vehicle licensing etc. etc.

Solution:

Fortunately there’s an online service to check MOT status. You’d think there would be – it’s exactly the sort of simple, non-personal, bounded data storage that computers are really good at looking up.

Complication:

To use it you need TWO pieces of information: vehicle reg no; and either the old MOT certificate (or MOT failure note) reference, or a reference on the V5C (log book).

Thing is, pretty much everyone knows their reg no. but guess where people keep the V5C? Generally in the same drawer, right next to the MOT certificate. So what is the point of the online service if it forces you to go and run your fingers over the piece of paper that contains the answer you’re looking for? And of course when you think of these things, sod’s law says you are NEVER at home, with your filing drawer in reach. It’s a bloody nonsense.

Fix:

Simple modification to the business logic: take away that requirement for a second piece of information.

At the front end, just ask the user for the reg no.

Hidden from view in the back end, tell the system that the correct V5C/cert reference has been entered. Dig through all that ancient legacy code(?) and set the “HAS_V5C_BEEN_PROVIDED” flag to “TRUE”.

Benefit:

Massive improvement in compliance. And a really huge new online transaction success story to shout about AT PRETTY MUCH ZERO COST.

Policy implications:

(And this must be where the problems lie in this complete no-brainer…) It will mean an acceptance that your MOT record is essentially public. Anyone can look it up if they know your reg no. Short of some really outlandish edge cases where the Sun might write some crappy story about Tulisa’s car having an out-of-date MOT, I really can’t see why this shouldn’t be a matter of public record. After all, the presence (at least until this year) of a visible tax disc has been a publicly viewable example of a car’s compliance with the law, and nobody’s ever got upset about that.

Even in the wildest imaginings of what risks might arise, they will never outweigh the benefit of making an MOT status check online service that is actually USABLE.

Rant over. Go on then – what did I miss, and WHY HASN’T THIS J F BEEN D?

(I wrote about this over three years ago, and have mentioned it several times since to senior officials in the world of government motoring administration. No answer ever came back. Should I have been more persistent, or just punchier?)

MOT status check: a five minute business case