Can I appeal the fine I got for being a day out of date to renew insurance based on..

EmmaRose89

I recently was stopped by the police and charged for not having insurance. The situation was as follows:

1. After my year long insurance had expired, I had insured the car short term, for what I thought was a month, so I could sell it. It was ACTUALLY 3 weeks not a whole month that it was insured for- I didn't know this (appreciated it's my fault for not being doubly sure)

2. I was stopped the day after it ran out. was stopped randomly (nothing wrong with car or driving)

3. I was asked to produce insurance documents so did so on the spot, it was then brought to my attention the insurance had ran out a week earlier than I thought it would - they saw that I was surprised and said to me they appreciate it was a clear mistake and that they didn't think at all that I had meant to drive uninsured.

They impounded the car right away and gave me 6 points a £300 fine and a £175 release fee.

I've paid the release fee and of course see it justified I take 6 points if that's a standard punishment.

However for the following reasons I wanted to ask anyone more knowledgeable in the field, if I have means to appeal the fine?

1. I'm a full time mature student newly without job - I don't have the means to pay £300 now and will find it difficult to do so (I couldn't afford to run the car hence why I was selling if)

2. I was stopped literally the day after it ran out as a random stop - it was a clear mistake, I was otherwise driving safely and my car was fine

3. I understand now that if you cannot immediately provide insurance docs you have a grace period which I would have had and at least would have been able to avoid the impound fee and taxi fees

Could anyone please help me out with some insight as to whether I could appeal?

Thanks
Emma

Ebe_Scrooge

As far as I'm aware, you have the option of accepting the fine + points, or else you can go to court to plead your case. There should be information about this on the penalty notice you were given.

Unfortunately it seems you were caught bang to rights - having no insurance is an absolute offence, there are no ifs or buts. You were driving without insurance, end of ( sorry, this isn't meant to sound patronising, just a statement of the facts ).

However, if you go to court you have the opportunity to put your case forward, and the magistrate should take account of any mitigating factors. You *may* be lucky and get a reduced fine - I think the points are non-negotiable though. Of course, there is also the chance of having an even larger fine imposed, but from what you've described I would hope a reasonable magistrate would be inclined to be a little lenient.

But to answer your question, the only way to have the fine reduced is to try your luck at court - the police can only issue standard fixed penalty fines, they don't have the power to change points and / or fines.

bigadaj

Think your going to struggle.

Did you go to court?

Also threes no grace period on having no insurance anymore, too easy for people to get out of it, if you can't demonstrate you are insured, and they consult the database to check then they take it off you there and then.

You can apply for time to pay the fine and justify with your low income.

Sounds like you were unlucky in getting a random stop on that day, I've only ever been stopped once by police in nearly thirty years of driving. It could be that vNPR camera picked up a lack of insurance.

AdrianC

Black and white, I'm afraid. You were driving without insurance. £300 fine and 6pts is the fixed penalty for admitting your guilt. If you want to argue it, you can reject the fixed penalty and go to court. But bear in mind you can be find up to £5,000 and banned. You will also be liable for court costs. It's very unlikely that you will get away with a lower penalty. (And just wait until you get quotes over the next few years with this on your licence...)

Think of it this way... If somebody had driven into your car, injuring you badly, and it turned out they were uninsured "but only by one day", would you be happy? Would you expect their ex-insurer to pay out? Would you accept "But I can't afford insurance at the moment" as an excuse from them?

No, you didn't drive into anybody. Fortunately. But you might have - and that's the reason why having car insurance is a legal requirement.

Just one question... Yes, you paid the release fee, but you would also have had to provide proof of insurance. And most insurers refuse to cover a car that's already impounded for being driven without insurance. How did you prove insurance to get it released?

The grace period for proving you have insurance is only available if the officer who stopped you has reasonable grounds to believe you are insured, but cannot prove it there and then. You clearly did not give him those grounds. If he'd let you drive home, you would not only have been committing a further offence, but there would be a reasonable case to argue that he could also be prosecuted for permitting you to - which would carry the same penalty for him.

OnanTheBarbarian

Strict liability offence, either you are insured or you are not.

The only time somebody will get away without being convicted of an offence for driving a car without insurance is when asked to drive an employers car and it turns out to be uninsured. There is a presumption allowed that if your employer asks you to drive one of their vehicles in the course of your employment that the vehicle is insured. But as far as I'm aware, that is the only exemption.

InsideInsurance

OnanTheBarbarian wrote: »

Strict liability offence, either you are insured or you are not.

The only time somebody will get away without being convicted of an offence for driving a car without insurance is when asked to drive an employers car and it turns out to be uninsured. There is a presumption allowed that if your employer asks you to drive one of their vehicles in the course of your employment that the vehicle is insured. But as far as I'm aware, that is the only exemption.

There can be a few other rare set of circumstances such as where the insurer admits they made a mistake and retrospectively insures the vehicle.

Remember one case with a prior client where this happened as the system had generated an auto renewal letter (ie do nothing and we'll renew you) but due to a glitch hadnt actually renewed the policy. They were stopped by the fuzz and done for driving with no insurance. We sent a letter confirming our mistake, a certificate of insurance covering the year that it should have and the person was let off (dont know if it actually went to court or the CPS dropped the case).

To the OP, you dont have an excuse for what you were doing. You could attempt to go to court to try and get a lower fine due to your financial circumstances etc but they can impose up to a £5k fine and/or ban there so its a gamble and one you'd probably want professional legal advice on rather than a public forum

DUTR

EmmaRose89 wrote: »

I recently was stopped by the police and charged for not having insurance. The situation was as follows:

1. After my year long insurance had expired, I had insured the car short term, for what I thought was a month, so I could sell it. It was ACTUALLY 3 weeks not a whole month that it was insured for- I didn't know this (appreciated it's my fault for not being doubly sure)

2. I was stopped the day after it ran out. was stopped randomly (nothing wrong with car or driving)

3. I was asked to produce insurance documents so did so on the spot, it was then brought to my attention the insurance had ran out a week earlier than I thought it would - they saw that I was surprised and said to me they appreciate it was a clear mistake and that they didn't think at all that I had meant to drive uninsured.

They impounded the car right away and gave me 6 points a £300 fine and a £175 release fee.

I've paid the release fee and of course see it justified I take 6 points if that's a standard punishment.

However for the following reasons I wanted to ask anyone more knowledgeable in the field, if I have means to appeal the fine?

1. I'm a full time mature student newly without job - I don't have the means to pay £300 now and will find it difficult to do so (I couldn't afford to run the car hence why I was selling if)

2. I was stopped literally the day after it ran out as a random stop - it was a clear mistake, I was otherwise driving safely and my car was fine

3. I understand now that if you cannot immediately provide insurance docs you have a grace period which I would have had and at least would have been able to avoid the impound fee and taxi fees

Could anyone please help me out with some insight as to whether I could appeal?

Thanks
Emma

Whether you want to believe it or not, you were stopped because the car was flagged as not having current insurance.

fivetide

InsideInsurance wrote: »

There can be a few other rare set of circumstances such as where the insurer admits they made a mistake and retrospectively insures the vehicle.

Had this with a bike.

Insurance had a number wrong. Pulled for no insurance but argued the case.

Luckily as "calls are recorded for training purposes" they were able to listen back and hear me tell them about the mistake and their assurance that they would correct it.

As such they informed the police I was covered when stopped so no ticket issued (got a producer at the side of the road and allowed to carry on as the officer realised it might be something trivial).

InsideInsurance

fivetide wrote: »

Had this with a bike.

Insurance had a number wrong. Pulled for no insurance but argued the case.

Luckily as "calls are recorded for training purposes" they were able to listen back and hear me tell them about the mistake and their assurance that they would correct it.

As such they informed the police I was covered when stopped so no ticket issued (got a producer at the side of the road and allowed to carry on as the officer realised it might be something trivial).

Unfortunately in our case the person was pulled outside of customer service hours and when they called the next morning they didnt get the brightest spark in the world and the person just registered it as a complaint on the system and passed it to the CR team work queue

Aretnap

You would not be fined anything like £5000 if you took this to court - that's the maximum fine, not the one which would actually be imposed. In fact fines are means tested - if you pleaded guilty it would be 100% of your weekly post-tax income, plus another 10% in victim surcharge, and around £85 in prosecution costs (costs might be reduced if you're on very low income). If you are on very low income this might well work out as less than £300. If you have no income at all or you're in receipt of state benefits your income would be assumed to be £110/week, making a total of just over £200, or less if the magistrates took pity on you and reduced the costs. Going to court would also give you the option of asking to pay by installments, which you can't do with the fixed penalty.

It's also vanishingly unlikely that if you went to court you'd be banned for driving the day after your insurance expired. You might end up with 7 or 8 points instead of 6, but I would think 6 would be more likely.

The magistrates can find special reasons not to give you any points (and by extension probably not fine you either) if you can show that you had an honest and reasonable belief that you were insured. But this usually means that you need to have been misled in some way. If you just carelessly chose 3 weeks instead of 4 from the online menu and then didn't double check the dates properly they probably wouldn't find special reasons.

The seizure of your car is legal if you fail to produce your insurance certificate on demand and the officer has a reasonable belief that you were driving uninsured... it sounds like that was the case so there's nothing you can do about the release fee or the taxi fare I'm afraid.

fivetide

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Unfortunately in our case the person was pulled outside of customer service hours and when they called the next morning they didnt get the brightest spark in the world and the person just registered it as a complaint on the system and passed it to the CR team work queue

So was I. It was a Sunday.

Just backing up what you said with another example is all.