Help - Driving Without Insurance

A123JACK

rosscobley wrote:

Have you had your new cover note yet. At what time and date did it start. If you say that you sorted it 2 hours after there might be a chance that it will be dated from midnight that day or might not even have a time on there. you might just be able to get away with it up the station if the person looking dont take much notice of the time of offence and the time the cover note started

My cover note started 2 hours after the wife was stopped. When I produced the cover note to the police they checked the date and time and said that we should expect to be issued with a court summons. Fingers crossed they will look favourably on us but the copper told the wife to expect 6points and a fine.

Mookfish

If the OP's wife does get points for this, will the insurance company try to put their premium up as a named driver has points for driving without insurance?

I know it sounds daft, but it wouldn't realy suprise me as my dad was refused car rental as he had previouly been stoped for riding a motorbike without a license (on a provisional but the L plate fell off). It's not like he would do that again, as he had since got a full license for both car and bike.

DavidHM

If the OP's wife does get points for this, will the insurance company try to put their premium up as a named driver has points for driving without insurance?

Of course they would reassess the risk (and that probably means upward).

At the very least, it shows carelessness (and carelessness can cause accidents, whether directly because of a lack of attention, or indirectly because they fail to get the car repaired).

Even though it's not the case here, other people with that conviciton might be blase about rules of the road generally - and that makes them a very bad risk.

A123JACK

Things have moved on a bit now. My partner has now received a summons to appear in our local Magistrates Court.

She really really does not want to attend - could anyone advise on the following:

1.Would a letter to the court explaining the circumstances be advisable or would attending in person be the best bet (the option of a letter is offered on the court summons)

2.Is it worth getting a solicitor to act on her behalf

She is not looking to deny the charge purely trying to explain the circumstances. She would ideally like to send a letter attaching a copy of our Insurance showing 5 years no claims and a detailed explanation of the lack of insurance being an oversight on our part (worded slightly better).

Any help / advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

Davidboy

Can't help with any decent advice, but just want to wish you the misses good luck. It's a shame an oversight can't be treated leniently. We all make mistakes at times. Although the police do take non insurance seriously and I believe now have powers to take non insured cars straight away off the road and crush them!!


D

Gold_Shogun

A123JACK wrote: »

My partner has now received a summons to appear in our local Magistrates Court.

(0) ... She really really does not want to attend - could anyone advise on the following:

(1) ... Would a letter to the court explaining the circumstances be advisable or would attending in person be the best bet (the option of a letter is offered on the court summons)

(2) ... Is it worth getting a solicitor to act on her behalf

She is not looking to deny the charge purely trying to explain the circumstances.

(4) .... She would ideally like to send a letter attaching a copy of our Insurance showing 5 years no claims and a detailed explanation of the lack of insurance being an oversight on our part (worded slightly better).

Dealing with your above points (in order of which would probably have the BEST relative outcome for yourselves) :-

(0) ... Personal Appearance at Court ... Although your wife may not fancy this idea, it really is the best option if your wish to put across the "concept" that you are a typical middle-ish age couple of 'good standing' who made a genuine mistake & rectified it the moment you became aware of it
..... IF your wife is not good at speaking in such situations or might get 'tongue-tied', she could still write her letter & copy of recent-past Insurances (AS IN POINT (4) above) and simply & honestly just say in Court "Sorry, but I'm terrified of these proceedings, so I have written down my Statement in Mitigation and would kindly ask the Bench to consider these before considering an appropriate punishment for my mistake", and then give copies of (4) to both the Bench AND the Prosecution.
... You (as the husband) will not normally be allowed to address the Court yourself (as you are not a "party" to the proceedings), but you can sit with your wife and talk-to/help her as your wife's "Mackenzie Friend" (although the Bench can allow you to talk on her behalf at their sole discretion IF they believe your wife is too distressed to "act for herself )
... This is likely to produce the "best personal" result for your wife, and minimise any points and fine.

(1) ... Mitigation letter to the Court ... This would be second-best, BUT courts get these "sob-story letters" all the time as a matter of course, and the Magistrates have become fairly cynical & thick-skinned about accepting them at face value ... IF you go this route, definitely include your Part (4) documents as it MIGHT make some small difference ... Personally, I would strongly recommend method (0) above in preference to this.

(2) ... Hire a solicitor to appear for you ... Frankly, if you are pleading guilty, this is really a waste of time & money which WILL add several hundred pounds to your costs, but WON'T reduce the punishment imposed by the Bench one little bit, as Magistrates have (with some cause) become so blase' about Solicitors Pleas in Mitigation ... To be honest, this path is somewhat more likely to result in aslightly higher level of punishment relative to either of the above, as many Magistrates tend to take the view that if the accused can't even be bothered to "show willing" or turn up personally, then they don't really care about the outcome & deserve whatever the Bench chooses to dole out.

It's your choice, but "a little remorse in person" goes a long way in a Court to convince the Bench that you are NOT the "typical ASBO scum" that deserves a good hammering.

Regards & Good Luck
Bob

Hapless_2

To give an example, I sold my old car to a junk-yard and one of their guys who's insured to drive anything came around and drove it away. Are you claiming that was illegal because I'd transferred my insurance to my new car?

You will find car dealers and scrap yards have different insurance rules and it would probably come under the business insurance.

boxinghris

Hi Bob,

Just wanted to thank you for the detailed advice you posted in this thread which I came across while frantically searching for information on what to do when caught driving with no insurance, as my partner's case almost exactly mirrors that of Jack's good wife.

My partner is a full time student with heaps of homework, and despite only passing her test around December last year she managed to insure the car herself when she bought it last September with a one off payment of £850 so she didn't have to worry about instalments.

This year however I told her not to renew with Barclays as I'd sort it out online for her far cheaper, but to cut a long story short (and spare you the explanation of why my head was up my backside for a couple of weeks) I messed up and poor Lynne was pulled up last week with her insurance 11 days out of date; yes, I am an absolute !!!! and if I could take her place I would, but although I will of course pay her fine there is a real concern that she will lose her licence and will have to take her test again, because she is technically still in the 'provisional' two year period since passing her test when she can have her license revoked.

Obviously we are not going to contest the charge but after reading your advice I'm convinced we should either both go to court and explain the mitigating circumstances for Lynne (ie, partner is a prat) or I should write a statement which Lynne can use in court detailing my failings and Lynne's belief that she was in fact insured.

Obviously the car was taxed and MOT'd, and the previous insurance document can be produced to demonstrate that neither of us has ever driven around illegally before, and my partner never knowingly.

Any further advice would of course be welcomed but what you've already provided is to Jack has been extremely helpful so once again, thanks for taking the time to post.;)

jadecinema

A similar thing happened to me 3 1/2 years ago on my scooter.
My scooter was stolen from my aunt's, returned to me and to get it repaired cheaply (I had just bought a house), I agreed to let the mechanics repair it as and when they weren't busy. This took about 3 months in all so I cancelled my insurance - no point paying the installments when it's not my responsibility as it was in the bike shop.
I get a call one morning saying the bike is ready to pick up. I call the local insurance company and pay for the insurance by credit card.
Later I collect the bike and set off to work. Get stopped by police on the way due to having no L plate on the back. They find no record of insurance on their system so give me a producer.
A few days later my insurance certificate arrives so off I go to the police station. Front of certificate says "Effective from (date I was stopped)" but the clerk turns it over to see "Date of commencement for the purposes of insurance act (day after I was stopped)." She informs me I wasn't insured so she cautions me.
Go to court, magistrate agrees that I didn't go out intentionally without insurance but 6 points, £80 fine and £35 court costs will "teach me to read through my documents more carefully in future."
This was on a provisional licence. I passed my car test in April of this year and thankfully they can't be included in the "get 6 points in the 2 years after you pass your test and your licence will be revoked" policy that the DVLA have because they were just over 3 years old. Any points you have that were aquaired less than 3 years before you passed you test, will be counted towards the 6, which if that were the case, 1 point and I would lose my licence. The points are off next year anyway.

boxinghris

jadecinema wrote: »

Go to court, magistrate agrees that I didn't go out intentionally without insurance but 6 points, £80 fine and £35 court costs will "teach me to read through my documents more carefully in future."

So the fine will teach you the ability to read through documents you didn't have until they were sent to you?

Perhaps the Magistrate should listen to the statements of defendants like yourself more carefully in future - handing some people power can be a license to condescend.

Going back to my partner's case for instance, when she got stopped she was asked if she was aware that she had no insurance on the car to which she panicked and replied 'yes', as when she's flustered she tends to agree with whatever people tell/ask her.

She then told the officer she was going to ring me because I'd know more about the insurance (I'd said I'd insure the car after all) but for some reason the officer told her to hang on - no need to ring me.
Why would he say this when it was obvious a 27 year old female on her own was flustered?

Anyway, I turn up and there are now three officers present and two vehicles - the two officers who stopped Lynne had called for a traffic officer to attend, and at this point I set my mobile phone to record what was being said in case it came in useful later; excellent sound quality with the supplied microphone.

The traffic officer informed us that the car was now being impounded at a cost of £100+ with £12 a day storage costs, then between them, the three officers informed us - now listen up, I kid you not - that it was possible to arrange insurance online and print the insurance document out which could be used to retrieve the car!

Lynne was as bemused as myself and asked "is there not a watermark" to which the officer replied "..the printer puts the watermark in the paper for you".

Lynne then asked if the compound would accept a cover note to release the car - "yes, a cover note would be fine, but NO FAXES - it's no good getting the insurance company to FAX the police station which will stamp the release form as a FAX definitely won't do - must be a cover note from the insurance company".

That was Friday, on Monday I took the day off work and we insured the car at the NFU paying for the full year before taking the cover note to the Police Station.

"A cover note won't do - sorry"
Obviously me and Lynne explained what the traffic officer had told us but it was no good - "...we need the full policy document because you could just pick up the car and cancel your cover note. If you've just paid the full amount I can't understand why they didn't give you the full policy document"

"..But we could cancel the insurance if we had the full policy document couldn't we?"

"...Er...yes, but you'd have to have waited for the document to be delivered to your house".

"..But you just said we should have been able to pick up the full document when we insured the car".

"...Er....usually you can....." - at which point I interjected "I've got a recording of the officer explaining how a cover note will do, and if he's misled us I want to make a complaint - I've got the recording here, do you want to listen?"

We were then asked to wait a few minutes while the Station rang the NFU to ask for a FAX proving that the car was insured (remember what the officer said about FAXes?).

Fifteen minutes later and the release form was stamped before we rushed off to pick the car up.
Would this have been the case if I hadn't had the recording?

I doubt it, and there are also other breaches of Police Procedure I've found after quizzing a friend of mine in the Traffic Police which are not relevant to the insurance case but will be relevant to the complaint against the Traffic Officer and the one of the original officers.

Interesting times ahead.