SORN question - unadopted road.

suffolkb

No, the road is a dead end. Anyone else here is a visitor, delivery van or lost.

System

Aretnap wrote: »

It's an offence to "use" a car without an MOT on a public road. The higher courts have interpreted "use" to mean "have use of" (link), and ruled that yes it is an offence to park a car on a public road without an MOT. In this context "public" means a road to which the public have access, irrespective of who owns and maintains it.

This is entirely separate from the vehicle's tax/SORN status.

A quiet unadopted driveway may well not meet the definition of a public road - does anyone other than the residents of the 8 houses and their visitors actually use it - eg do other people use it as a short cut? Even if it is a public place the chances of getting caught parking your on-MOTed car there would probably slim (though not zero). If you did get caught it would likely be a £100 fixed penalty and no points.

But that was case law before VERA 1994 was enacted.

I would think that a statute introduced post 1992 defining a public road would nullify the 1992 interpretation.

Aretnap

!!!!!! wrote: »

But that was case law before VERA 1994 was enacted.

I would think that a statute introduced post 1992 defining a public road would nullify the 1992 interpretation.

VERA defines public road purely for the purposes of VERA. MOT tests come under the Road Traffic Act which has its own definition of road - "any highway and any other road to which the public has access".

Added - the different definitions make a certain amount of sense. Vehicle tax was (once upon a time) a tax to pay for the upkeep of roads, so you had to pay it only if you took your car onto a road which was maintained at public expense. The purpose of the tax has wandered a bit over the years, but the language is preserved in statute. The Road Traffic Act meanwhile is aimed mainly at protecting the public from bad driving, so applies anywhere the general public are actually to be found, regardless of who pays for the maintenance.

Rover_Driver

!!!!!! wrote: »

But that was case law before VERA 1994 was enacted.

I would think that a statute introduced post 1992 defining a public road would nullify the 1992 interpretation.

Different legislation has different definitions:

The legislation and definition for licensing and SORN matters is in The Vehicles Excise & Registration Act 1994, which is still in force.

The legislation, definition and requirement for the MOT test is the Road Traffic Act 1988, which is still in force.

The definitions in each act have no effect on the other, they are completely separate.

Aretnap

suffolkb wrote: »

No, the road is a dead end. Anyone else here is a visitor, delivery van or lost.

In that case so long as there aren't too many lost people wandering in it's very unlikely to be a road to which the public have access, so you should be fine to leave an un-MOTed car there.

[Deleted User]

No matter what the law says I'd just park it on your private drive/lawn to avoid any possible DVLA fines.

I hear of people getting SORN fines even when their car is on their drive as the number plate was visible from the road which the ANPR camera picked up.

Iceweasel

Deleted_User wrote: »

No matter what the law says I'd just park it on your private drive/lawn to avoid any possible DVLA fines.

I hear of people getting SORN fines even when their car is on their drive as the number plate was visible from the road which the ANPR camera picked up.

I don't think that even George Orwell envisaged the degree of 'supervision for our own good' that goes on these days.

I discovered last week that there are more CCTV cameras in Aberdeen than in the whole of California for example.

We are the most watched nation in the entire world.

Do we really benefit at all from this?