Hey, I have a question that I was just asking out of curiosity. I think a lot of people other than me are wondering this and I always get mixed responses from people.

Before anything, I have valid insurance (as you can see from my previous ticket, i wasn't fined $9000 for not having insurance).

Anyways, I was just wondering. Let's say I'm driving a car without insurance and a police officer is tailing me. Is he able to run my license plate and see if I'm insured or not?

I heard a couple of people talking about "pink slip" scams. This is where they get a fake "pink slip" and use it as insurance?

I'm just curious, how do people get away with doing this if police are able to run license plates to tell if you have insurance or not?

Not sure of the answer. I know the ministry knows if you have insurance or not. When I pull insurance off my summer car (fire and theft only) I get a notice from MTO stating that I cannot apply for new stickers until I can prove I have liability insurance on the vehicle. I was stopped about 4 months ago for driving with my high beams on (Honestly forgot to turn them off). I still had my old insurance information (expired) in the vehicle as I forgot to put in the new information. It was like 4:00 AM, so there was no way of contacting the insurance company. I was let off with a warning on everything, and the officer just told me to make sure I carry all valid documentation with me. I don't think they have access to it, but at the same time, its the officer's discretion whether to lay the charge or not.

Insurance companies are now sharing some data with the MTO and police regarding insurance status. The data isn't always available for every vehicle, but it gives the officer a little more to go on when investigating.

Oh okay because a friend of mine told me while checking your license plates a police can

-> See whether the vehicle is insured or not

-> See which insurance company the vehicle is

i never knew they had access to that information. I know a couple of people who drive using the "pink slip". I think they get valid insurance and then cancel it and keep the pink slip. This allows them to drive for the year. I was wondering how this works if police have access to the information.

Yes, police can check the insurance ''status'' of your vehicle by running your plate on MTO. If you don't have insurance it will show up on the computer as ''UNCONFIRMED'' in big red letters. The system is usually correct, I've personally never seen it wrong as long as its been out.

Not all police services have access to that data.