Driving Uninsured

the_big_fact_hunt

i have a trade policy that allows me to drive anything with the owners consent, if they are not insured but have tax and mot i could be stopped by anpr cars as it would come up on their system as uninsured, but as i dont have to register anything that i have in my posession for less than 14 days i just produce my cert and away i go. simple and perfectly legal.
also worth considering is the fact that they should issue a notice of intended prosecution within 14 days of the offence being comitted (definately for speeding matters anyway!)
my best advice is forget about it and get reinsured

sniperpenguin

So what about the offence of driving an uninsured vehicle on the road and the police go to sieze the vehicle which they are empowered to do?

Unless someone corrects me (which often happens), this only applied to UNTAXED vehicles. If the owner has no road tax, they are 99% likely to be uninsured (as this is the reason they cannot buy the tax in the first place).

mrbadexample

sniperpenguin wrote: »

Unless someone corrects me (which often happens), this only applied to UNTAXED vehicles. If the owner has no road tax, they are 99% likely to be uninsured (as this is the reason they cannot buy the tax in the first place).

Happy to correct you. The police have the powers to impound vehicles driven without insurance. However, this is a recent change, as (I think - unless someone corrects me!) this was brought in in January.

davidjohndean

My advice would be too just wait and see - Although make sure you now have insurance.

ollym_3

Thanks to everyone here. I reinsurared ASAP even though I won't be using my car for a long time. It was a genuine mistake.

Lastly if I do get a letter of some sort I could always say a friend was driving (one with comp insurance that would cover my car).

Ta

rosscobley

It was only a speed camera. if it had been an Anpr camera you would have been stopped there and then. You may get a letter though the door for speeding. Just fill it in send it back and pay the fine. You will get your three points and thats it. They dont check Insurance, MOT, Tax with a speeding fine you will be fine all they want is the money

kai666

I drove around everyday for a month uninsured. I thought the insurance ended a march, it didn't it finished in february. The postman at the time was nicking our post (we found out when the post office apologised and had him arrested) and the renewal never came. And bizarrely for an insurance company they cancelled the policy as they hadn't heard anything (I had always experienced the oposite up till then!)

When i found out i refused to drive until it was sorted out. I never had any come back, though it must hve been at least 5 years ago now

plane_boy2000

Happychappy wrote: »

So what about the offence of driving an uninsured vehicle on the road and the police go to sieze the vehicle which they are empowered to do? the owner cannot produce insurance or name someone who was driving who had insurance to cover them? I dont follow your arguement.

There is reasonable suspicion to beleive a serious offence of no insurance has been committed and it is up to the driver/owner to prove it hasnt. The police have evidence that vehicle was not subject of an insurance policy, whether the driver was not the owner and was insured third party to drive any other vehicle, is something for the owner to put forward as a defence.

The insurance database as well as VEL, MOT and driver licence details are all held on the PNC and linked into the ANPR cameras which activate and record the details.

Simple, but effective, however, whether the force has enough manpower to follow up activations is extremely doubtful and I would imagine would not be followed up.

The police could impound your vehicle, but I am sure that they dont just impound anything they find parked without establishing who the owner is and giving them the oportunity to provide and insurance cert.

My original point still stands that a car could show up on the police computer as uninsured, but be being driven by a trader who has a trade policy which allows him to drive prety much anything in line with his job. He may get pulled over but woulod be able to prove that he insured to drive by providing his insurance cert.

I agree, the police do not appear to have enough resource to enforce many laws, and I also think there has been a drop in teh standard of driving over the last few years as the police have relied on more speed cameras for enforcement rather than patrols.