Pulled over for driving with no insurance...

GirlfromLondon

Hi all,

Was wondering if anyone had any advice on this.

Borrowed my sister's car, on which I am a named driver, and while driving home, pulled over by police for driving without insurance. Penalty is £200 fine and 6 points on licence.

Long story short, after many panicked phone calls, sister realises there was an oversight with regard to previous no claims with her insurance back in May. Policy was cancelled. So car was not insured.

I know I'll have to pay the fine, but was wondering if there was any way or any advice anyone had about avoiding the points - as to my absolute knowledge the car was insured. My job relies on driving hired vehicles fairly frequently so want to avoid this if there's any way.

If anyone's had any similar experience or advice for me, it'd be most appreciated!

Thank you.

HappyMJ

It's currently an offer of a fixed penalty notice and points and not yet a fine. If you wish to you can choose not to pay it and defend it in court by pleading not guilty. If found guilty the fine that the court will issue will be bigger but with the same points and you will need to take a day off work. However, it might be worth the risk. You should see a solicitor to find out your options.

jc808

Slap your stupid sister senseless?

spiro

The other major problem your going to have is if you have/want to get your own insurance because insurers dont like people who have points for no insurance.

bigbulldog

Get her to pay the fine your going to get.

also...you say "as to my absolute knowledge the car was insured"I wonder how many times has that been said to the police.

HappyMJ

bigbulldog wrote: »

Get her to pay the fine your going to get.

also...you say "as to my absolute knowledge the car was insured"I wonder how many times has that been said to the police.

I get the feeling the OP doesn't really care much about the fine. It's the 6 points and the future requirement to mention to insurers that he has been given a fixed penalty for driving without insurance which could add hundreds to each years premium for insurance for quite a few years as well as the risk to his current job which will probably require a clean licence.

The only way to avoid the points is to not pay the penalty, go to court and plead with a judge depending on solicitor advice.

robpw2

why do people assume when driving cars?
you shouldnt get in a car unless your 100% sure your insured

prowla

It is nobody else's responsibility but your own to ensure that you are insured before you drive.

Fortunately no accident or anything occurred, so the Police did the OP a favour there.

interstellaflyer

robpw2 wrote: »

why do people assume when driving cars?
you shouldnt get in a car unless your 100% sure your insured

One slight problem with that statement, how are you going to be 100% sure, you can look at their insurance certificate, but that doesn't mean it's valid, I would bet that the OPs sister did know that the insurance was cancelled however, choose to ignore it and didn't let on to the OP, as the OP was a named driver on the policy and I assume had been for some time them why would the OP question it this one time. I'm only going on what the OP has told us, we don't know how true it is.

spiro

HappyMJ wrote: »

The only way to avoid the points is to not pay the penalty, go to court and plead with a judge depending on solicitor advice.

My only concern with this would be how the judge considers why a sister would not advise her sister that she had no insurance. The sister who owns the car would surely have been written to to advise her the insurance had been cancelled so how can she claim she did not know until now.

Aretnap

No insurance is a strict liability offence so the fact that you bel;ieved you were insured is not a defence; it is however strong mitigation and there is provision for magistrates not to give you points if they find that there are "special reasons not to endorse". In relation to insurance, a special reasons argument has a decent chance of succeeding if you can show that
(1) you had a reasonable belief that you were insured
(2) you had no reason whatsoever to suspect thatyou were not insured and
(3) you were mislead about the car's insurance status by someone you had good reason to trust.

If you want to try it, decline the fixed penalty by ticking the box requesting a court hearing, and do not pay the £200. You'll then be summonsed to court t some point in the next few months where you would plead guilty but argue special reasons. The onus would be on you to show that special reasons existed; it would help a lot if your sister was willing to give evidence about why the car was uninsured and what she told you. Note that there's a risk that by doing so she could be setting herself up for a charge of causing or permitting you to drive without insurance, which carries a similar penalty to driving without insurance herself.

Also worth noting that if the court didn't find special reasons the fine would be bigger than £200. It's also possible that you could get more than 6 points, but that seems unlikely in the circumstances.

You may want to consult a solicitor before deciding what to do (if so find one who specialises in motoring law - common or garden solicitors are often not very knowledgable about motoring matters), but in your shoes I'd try it. Insurers don't like no insurance convictions, and an IN10 endorsement would add substantially to your own premium, as well as excluding you from the insurance policies used by many hire car companies, so it could make it difficult to hire cars in future.