Hit from behind whilst uninsured!

Obukit

Sgt_Pepper wrote: »

What insurance are you going to drive the courtesy car on?

It's common you you to drive it on your current policy.

No it's not, the hire company provides insurance which is totally separate to yours. Otherwise they would be giving you a £10k piece of metal trusting that you hadn't told any porkies to your insurance company in the first place.

Sgt_Pepper_2

Obukit wrote: »

No it's not, the hire company provides insurance which is totally separate to yours. Otherwise they would be giving you a £10k piece of metal trusting that you hadn't told any porkies to your insurance company in the first place.

It's not what I was told when I was provided with one last week.

vaio

OP....as others have said you have no defence to a driving without insurance charge but you do have pretty good mitigation to avoid the normal 6 points and the resultant revocation of your licence.

To put the mitigation you would need to appear in court so I'd ignore the suggestions to plead for a fixed penalty notice, similarly, I'd not be spending any money on legal advice until you hear from the police that they are going to pursue it.

If the police do decide to pursue it then I'd certainly be getting advice on the idea of handing the police the recording & other stuff with view to talking the police into charging the dealer with "causing or permitting"

Finally, I'd not be worrying about "perverting the course of justice" (or that other favourite "assisting an offender"), it's just baseless scaremongering

blue_monkey_2

flea72 wrote: »

how much RFL is on the vehicle? if it is a full 6 or 12m from the date of purchase, then the trader would have needed insurance in the OPs name to be able to tax it, as you cant tax a vehicle with a trader policy

F

We have bought 2 x used cars this year from different traders and both have been taxed for 12 months, at our request and expense (added onto the purchase price), by the trader before we collected them.

Neither trader had our insurance certificate as we set it up the night before collecting the car and so they taxed the cars even before they were insured in our name. So this must be incorrect and they must be able to Tax a car on a Traders Policy as the V5 car would not have been in the name of the person buying the tax anyway.

meercatsunited

op,
I apologise for some of the comments on here, you asked for advice unfortunately you get those who get a rise out of being just nasty as well as those genuinely wanting to help.

there is some good advice posted here, ignore the nasties they are not worth the breath

if you have to take any kind of legal action use a no win no fee basis co.

Destination_..._?

@ shadowfnx '

You have recordings of the Trade Dealer lying to you telling you he has insured the car for you and then he admitted he hasn't have you passed this information on to the police ?

harveybobbles

flea72 wrote: »

how much RFL is on the vehicle? if it is a full 6 or 12m from the date of purchase, then the trader would have needed insurance in the OPs name to be able to tax it, as you cant tax a vehicle with a trader policy

F

You can if you act dumb.

Cash-Strapped.T32

bungle4by4 wrote: »

I stand by my comment, Its not exactly a difficult thing, arrange your insurance and make sure your paperwork is in order before you turn the car on and drive on the roads with law abiding, insurance paying people.

You need to take more responsibilty for your actions. If your car is not legal, or if your not 100% sure your allowed on the road, dont drive. If a car trader told me the sky was blue, i'd want it in writing, signed by his mother and bank manager before i believed a single word of it.

Its your car, and your fault you drove without insurance. I really do hope they throw the book at you. People like you cost ME money. If you think this is harsh, tough. this is my opinion, if you dont want it then put me on ignore. but make sure your car is legal before you drive it. if your even slightly unsure, take the bus.

This is an unworkable position to take imo.
For instance, I'm not 100% sure I'm insured. I took my policy out several months ago & received my docs all in order, but how do I know that yesterday my insurance co didn't cancel my policy without telling me? Other posters on here have had such things happen for one reason or another.
Ok, it's highly unlikely, but I couldn't tell you for certain that they haven't done so.
All the same, come Monday I'll be riding to work as I always do, 99.9% sure that I'm still insured. :cool:

Another example; I sent one of our workers out today in the spare works' van. He can't know for sure that our policy is in order since I administer such things & he doesn't - He takes my word for it, just like the OP took another person's word for it.

Ok, there's an exception in law for employees who assume the company policy in place, but your position does not allow for this, it demands 100% personal certainty.
Should he have taken the bus with a half-tonne of goods?


Now, our legislators have decided that insurance is an issue of such importance that it should be strict-liability, that even if your reasonable assumption is incorrect, you're still liable. That's fine.
But unless you ring your company every morning before you go out, or unless you work for the company who insures you and you administer your own poilcy, you're always taking someone else's word on trust that your policy is in place, be it your employer, the insurance co's call-centre, or your assumption that yesterday's policy is still in place; In short, you're always working on "merely" a reasonable assumption.


You might reasonably come back at me and say that I'm splitting hairs, or I'm taking the examples to such extremes as to be silly (and you'd be right), but that's exactly what your position also does.
The OP is liable in law, no one will argue, but at the end of the day the legit trader who sold the car told him explicitly that he *was* insured as part of the terms of sale - Why would you doubt this any more than some call-centre worker who tells you the same thing?
They both want your money, and neither are more morally upstanding or inherently trustworthy than the other.


Personally I think the OP should be liable (though in this case he's not the at fault party so that's cool), but if it came to it, his strong mitigation should carry enough weight to prevent him getting into any real trouble.
Yours appears to be that he should have the book thrown at him.
I don't only think it's too harsh as opinion as you say, but practically, unworkable in real life.

flea72

blue_monkey wrote: »

We have bought 2 x used cars this year from different traders and both have been taxed for 12 months, at our request and expense (added onto the purchase price), by the trader before we collected them.

no, you cannot tax a vehicle using a traders policy, so which of the following has your trader done?

found a v. friendly postmaster who is prepared to turn a blind eye

pretended to be you and set-up the 7 day insurance on your behalf

registered the car to themselves and by doing so have added another owner to the history

or used tippex on the V5!

F

shadowfnx

JournalGirl wrote: »

OP, I think some of the comments here are very unkind.

The trader has reneged on his 7 day insurance. You should have an evidence trail that you set up your insurance to commence 7 days after purchase. Why on earth would anyone do that if they didn't have insurance in place.

I truly hope you get this resolved. And as has been said before, the fact your car was not insured won't affect it getting repaired, that is all on the other driver's insurance.

Good luck!

Thank you for the kind words. What you've said is very close to what I was advised at the scene of the accident by the police. The fact that I had insurance set up for next Wednesday is further evidence that I was not intending to break the law.

Sgt_Pepper wrote: »

What insurance are you going to drive the courtesy car on?

It's common you you to drive it on your current policy.

The claims company is insuring me on the car. I made sure they gave me confirmation of that in writing. I've definitely learned my lesson there!

flea72 wrote: »

how much RFL is on the vehicle? if it is a full 6 or 12m from the date of purchase, then the trader would have needed insurance in the OPs name to be able to tax it, as you cant tax a vehicle with a trader policy

F

The road tax expires February 2013, so it was taxed very recently.

meercatsunited wrote: »

shadowfnx
we were rearended in a similar situation. in stationary traffic, woman on phone ploughed into vehicle behind that in turn shunted into us.

insurance damage for all vehicles was paid by the insurance company of the woman who caused the accident and not the one who shunted into us.

the recording of the trader stating 7 days cover for you is really important make sure you provide a copy to the no win no fee claim company.

when taking out a policy always tell insurance companies everything even minor details because they will refuse to pay out and record the conversations you have with them.

good luck with everything

Thanks for the advice and for sharing your experience. The accident claims company I'm dealing with is talking directly to the insurance of the at-fault party. The car in the middle is not being involved in the claim, as you've rightly said.

Destination_..._? wrote: »

@ shadowfnx '

You have recordings of the Trade Dealer lying to you telling you he has insured the car for you and then he admitted he hasn't have you passed this information on to the police ?

I'm only going to pass the recording onto the police should they contact me. I haven't played it back to anyone yet, as I believe that would be against telephone recording laws. The officer at the scene said he believed the car was insured, especially since it had a new tax disc. He said I may need to prove at a later date that I was driving with insurance. I ran a check on the askMID website as soon as I got home, and it stated that my vehicle was showing up as insured. It's worth noting that the car was not impounded and I was free to drive away.

I appreciate the replies everyone! They've all been very helpful.