Stopped for no Insurance in works van?

OnanTheBarbarian

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

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

There are 2 lots of proceedings here

1- The proceedings against the employer - which would likely continue as they are guilty - perhaps with mitigating circumstances

2- The proceedings against the driver - providing he was using the vehicle in the course of his employment and not for social & domestic use. Much will depend on the circumstances of when he was stopped. i.e a Van belonging to say a window cleaner firm stopped at 4am, it would not realty wash that it was being used for work purposes.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

GingerBob wrote: »

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.

Too cynical. What it is saying is that even though he is clearly not insured, there is a let-out clause, but to use the let out clause he has to show that he was acting reasonably. Basically, the law allows that an individual driver may genuinely believe that company insurance covered him. Basically if your boss says, pop down the builder's merchants and pick up a load, and chucks the keys at you, you'd reasonably suppose that your boss knew about the insurance and do as you were told. What they are not giving is a let out clause so that a cheapskate company can get away with not insuring its drivers.

I'd say that was pretending he was innocent although he was guilty!

duchy

If the employer supplies a vehicle and the employee has use of it for private use as well under the company policy (as do thousands of company car drivers) then whether the employee was working , on their way to work or off the clock shouldn't matter.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

duchy wrote: »

If the employer supplies a vehicle and the employee has use of it for private use as well under the company policy (as do thousands of company car drivers) then whether the employee was working , on their way to work or off the clock shouldn't matter.

The legislation is quite specific "in the course of their employment" which is a legal definition and does not cover the private use of a company car. Commuting to work is not within the course of your employment. Many companies are quite strict about taking vehicles home because of their insurance only covering employees for driving while at work.

dacouch

IanMSpencer wrote: »

Too cynical. What it is saying is that even though he is clearly not insured, there is a let-out clause, but to use the let out clause he has to show that he was acting reasonably. Basically, the law allows that an individual driver may genuinely believe that company insurance covered him. Basically if your boss says, pop down the builder's merchants and pick up a load, and chucks the keys at you, you'd reasonably suppose that your boss knew about the insurance and do as you were told. What they are not giving is a let out clause so that a cheapskate company can get away with not insuring its drivers.

I'd say that was pretending he was innocent although he was guilty!

Although a normal motorist charged with no insurance has to prove they're insured, it's not upto the prosecution to prove they weren't

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

dacouch wrote: »

Although a normal motorist charged with no insurance has to prove they're insured, it's not upto the prosecution to prove they weren't

No, in this case they've already proved he was not insured, this is about having proved that, letting the driver prove they have an exceptional circumstance.