Stopped for no Insurance in works van?

the_dudez

hi all,

i was stopped in the works van and it seems i'm not insured.

they let me go at the scene as they could not prove i was not insured at the time.

i had the policy in the van stating any driver over 25 but copper says its a named policy and i was not on it. but it was the weekend so they could not check as the insurance company was closed

i then got a call from them and i was provisionally charged with it seems i was not added to the policy

company owner has been charged for letting me drive the van

ware do i stand ?

anniecave

can you clarify the above post? It doesn't make sense? Some full stops and commas would be useful!

Quentin

You have a defence if you were driving on your employers instructions and were lead to believe your employer's insurance covered the journey.

If you have a union use their solicitor

Quiet_Spark

↑ ↑ ↑

What he said

Nilrem

Quentin wrote: »

You have a defence if you were driving on your employers instructions and were lead to believe your employer's insurance covered the journey.

If you have a union use their solicitor

Pretty much it, about the only time you do have a defence for driving without insurance is when it's an employers vehicle and they have told you that you are covered, and you have no reason to believe otherwise.

Paradigm

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/143


(3)A person charged with using a motor vehicle in contravention of this section shall not be convicted if he proves—
(a)that the vehicle did not belong to him and was not in his possession under a contract of hiring or of loan,
(b)that he was using the vehicle in the course of his employment, and
(c)that he neither knew nor had reason to believe that there was not in force in relation to the vehicle such a policy of insurance or security as is mentioned in subsection (1) above.

arcon5

anniecave wrote: »

can you clarify the above post? It doesn't make sense? Some full stops and commas would be useful!

Seems to make sense to everybody else - despite no full stops.

But i'll give you a dummies guide to ops post

There's a van belonging to a company
There's an employee driving it
Employee not named on policy, but he was under the believe the policy was an any driver policy and he was covered
Officer unable to verify his suspicion of no insurance for the driver due to it being weekend

OnanTheBarbarian

Were you driving the van in the course of your employment at the time?

If you were not, that may be the only problem with the Defence under section S143(3) of the Road Traffic Act

UsernameAlreadyExists

As an aside, if found innocent for the reasons above, then what? Is the employer chased up or is the case simply dropped?

GingerBob_3

Paradigm wrote: »

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/143


(3)A person charged with using a motor vehicle in contravention of this section shall not be convicted if he proves—
(a)that the vehicle did not belong to him and was not in his possession under a contract of hiring or of loan,
(b)that he was using the vehicle in the course of his employment, and
(c)that he neither knew nor had reason to believe that there was not in force in relation to the vehicle such a policy of insurance or security as is mentioned in subsection (1) above.

Seems like the government has now moved to guilty until proved innocent. I suppose it was only a matter of time. Abolishing trial by jury will be next.

OnanTheBarbarian

Having no insurance is a "strict liability offence", meaning either the monkey behind the wheel has it or does not, with the exception of the defence pointed out already in this thread.

So the "oh I forgot to renew" or "I didn't realise my direct debit had been stopped" etc does not work. They are merely mitigating circumstances to try and reduce the level of fine by demonstrating there was not a deliberate attempt to drive without insurance.