“The MPs said the government’s first priority must be to tackle the growing problem of illegal drivers. An estimated one million drivers do not have a valid licence.”

I have said for a long time that drivers should have to show their licence,
MOT, and insurance when buying petrol. Yeah they could be forged, it will
increase the time it takes to buy fuel and place a responsibility on staff
(with the price of fuel it they could employ more staff and pay for more
responsible staff without much difference in price, it’s supposed to be
green taxed anyway so a high price and inconvenience is “beneficial”). I
guess it could even lead to a black market in fuel - bunches of kids outside
the filling station saying “buy us a gallon mister, I’ll give you the
money”!

However, it shouldn’t be too hard to design credit card sized insurance /
mot docs and we already have licences that way. Ideally they would be
database checked to ensure they were valid - that could be done directly off
a credit /debit card or require swiping a separate card if paying by cash. A
fail safe would be to allow fuel to be dispensed anyway (signing a waiver?)
but notify the police of any irregularities that could be check on later.
This is an IT system waiting to be implemented.

All the arguments against could be levelled at alcohol sales (except that
proof of id only affects the young, no one asks me for it!). In any case the
gains in preventing unlicensed / uninsured drivers and unsafe cars / untaxed
cars, could be immense.