Licence, Insurance, MOT & Tax

It helps to think of driving legally as four separate boxes that all have to be ticked together: you personally must be licensed to drive, the car must be insured, the car must be roadworthy (the MOT), and the car must be taxed. None of these substitutes for another — a fully insured car with an expired MOT still isn't legal to drive on a public road, and a taxed, MOT'd car being driven by someone with no valid licence isn't legal either.

Before you can drive unsupervised, you need a provisional licence. It lets you drive a car while displaying red L plates (D plates in Wales) and while accompanied by a supervising driver who is at least 21 and has held a full licence for the vehicle for at least three years. A provisional licence does not let you drive on a motorway unless you're taking lessons with an approved driving instructor in a dual-controlled car.

Once you pass both parts of the theory-then-practical test sequence, your provisional upgrades to a full licence, which removes the L plates, the supervision requirement, and the motorway restriction. Newly qualified drivers enter a probationary period straight away — covered in the next lesson.

It is a criminal offence to use a vehicle on a public road without at least third-party insurance — the legal minimum. Third-party cover pays for injury or damage you cause to other people, vehicles or property; it does not pay to repair your own car. Two other common levels build on top of it:

• Third party, fire and theft — third-party cover, plus your own car if it's stolen or damaged by fire.
• Comprehensive — the widest cover, including damage to your own vehicle regardless of fault.

The MOT test is an annual check of a car's roadworthiness — brakes, tyres, lights, steering, exhaust emissions and more — carried out at an approved test centre. A car generally needs its first MOT once it reaches three years old from first registration, and then a fresh MOT every year after that. Passing the MOT is not the same as the car being roadworthy for its entire lifetime — it's a snapshot on the day of the test, which is why a driver is still responsible for keeping the car safe in between tests.

Driving without a valid MOT (once one is due) is generally illegal, and a car without a current MOT usually cannot be taxed either — the two are checked against each other.

Vehicle tax (Vehicle Excise Duty, often still called "road tax") has to be paid to keep a registered vehicle on a public road, even if you barely drive it. If a car is off the road and genuinely not being used or kept on a public road, the keeper can declare a SORN instead of taxing it.

The V5C — the vehicle registration certificate, commonly called the logbook — records who the registered keeper of a vehicle is. The registered keeper is the person responsible for the vehicle day to day; that isn't always the same person as the legal owner (for example, on some finance agreements). Whenever a vehicle changes hands, or the keeper's name or address changes, the V5C has to be updated with the DVLA.

A police officer can ask you to produce your licence, insurance and MOT certificate. If you don't have them with you at the time, you can normally be given a set number of days to take them to a police station instead of being required to show them on the spot. It's your responsibility to be able to produce all three when asked, not just to hold valid documents somewhere at home.

You're also responsible for telling the DVLA when your circumstances change — a change of name or address on your licence and V5C, or a change to your health that could affect your ability to drive safely. Out-of-date DVLA records can cause problems with renewals, reminders, and enforcement letters going to the wrong place.