Registration does not expire when it suits you. It expires the week you are travelling, when the garage is booked out to the end of the month, or just after you have paid for something else large.

And it is almost never about not having had the time. It is about not knowing the date was close, because the date is written in a logbook that sits in the glovebox and never gets opened until it is needed.

Why it does not stick

Registration is one of the few obligations that comes round once a year. Anything that repeats monthly or weekly becomes routine on its own. Something that arrives once in twelve months has no chance of becoming routine — by then you have changed phones twice and cleared your notifications three times.

Add to that the fact that most households run more than one vehicle. Two cars and a motorcycle mean three registration dates, three roadworthiness tests and at least three policies, each on its own cycle.

What happens when it slips

Driving with expired registration is an offence, and the fine is the smallest part of the problem. The more serious issue is that you formally do not have a validly registered vehicle, which also affects your insurance if something happens.

All of it for something that is really just a date nobody wrote down in the right place.

A date attached to the vehicle, not to your memory

In Faar you enter the registration and roadworthiness expiry dates once, against the vehicle. From there the app tracks them and tells you before they run out — early enough to do something about it, not on the day it has already passed.

The reminder hangs on the vehicle rather than on when you last opened the app. If you do not open Faar for two months, the notice is still waiting for you.

The logbook can live on your phone too

Alongside the dates you can add a photo of the vehicle logbook, front and back. It does not replace the document — by law you still have to carry it — but when someone asks you over the phone for a chassis number or year of manufacture, you do not have to walk out to the car.

The same logic for everything else

Once the dates are in the app, the same principle covers the insurance policy, the service interval and the tyre change. Instead of three places where you try to remember something, it all sits with the vehicle it belongs to.

Keeping vehicles, documents and reminders in Faar is free, with no subscription.