quite regular these days if your car is involved the insurance company pay out and leave the car to you to dispose of, so basicly these ppl resell the car in a damaged state or keep using them as is, if the car needs a vic when the logbook is sent off to go into the new blokes name he gets a letter saying, the car is registered into your name but before a logbook can be issued it must be vic'd
some cat c's do slip through the net and dont need a vic, cat d's dont need one
its nothing to panic over, you can ring dvla yourself if it needs one its only 36 quid