Advice on conviction please.

CPW007

It was a Sprinter 3.5t mwb. I sold it after getting the 6 points as the insurance would have been too high.
It was nice to sleep in and also nice to able to stand up in and keep all the climbing gear in. I now use an Argos £20 tent that does the job.

maninthestreet

CPW007 wrote: »

It was a Sprinter 3.5t mwb. I sold it after getting the 6 points as the insurance would have been too high.
It was nice to sleep in and also nice to able to stand up in and keep all the climbing gear in. I now use an Argos £20 tent that does the job.

If it was 3.5t van, you were not breaking the law driving it over a bridge with a mgw restriction of 3.5t - or am I missing something??

maddogb

i'm still puzzled over several factors here
the van had insurance to cover 3rd party liability which cannot be revoked under The RTA so why the police involvement and extra fine/points?

Car_54

maddogb wrote: »

i'm still puzzled over several factors here
the van had insurance to cover 3rd party liability which cannot be revoked under The RTA so why the police involvement and extra fine/points?

But it hadn't. The insurance was for SD & P. There was no insurance for business use. No need to revoke anything - it didn't exist.

Academic anyway, as there's no route to appeal.

AdrianC

maddogb wrote: »

i'm still puzzled over several factors here
the van had insurance to cover 3rd party liability which cannot be revoked under The RTA so why the police involvement and extra fine/points?

The third party liability is in place, yes.

But that doesn't mean that the vehicle's being driven in accordance with an insurance policy, so doesn't mean that a prosecution for driving whilst uninsured should fail.

If it did, then all policies would somehow magically become any-driver policies, with only the fully comprehensive portions of the policy varying. Insure Mr Sensible-Middle-Aged on a car, it's automagically covered for 17yo-loony-hotshoe.

interstellaflyer

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

Has a car for business and deliveries and a van for personal use?

I guess it is possible.

I know quite a few people that have vans for personal use, fishing, model airplanes. that sort of thing and as the OP says he used it for his hobby and to sleep in, again which is quite feasible, I've seen vans kitted out to live in as well as carry hobby equipment, it beats wreaking the interior of your car.

Aretnap

maddogb wrote: »

i'm still puzzled over several factors here
the van had insurance to cover 3rd party liability which cannot be revoked under The RTA so why the police involvement and extra fine/points?

A common misconception. The Road Traffic Act requires your use of the car to be covered by an insurance policy. If your policy says that you're only covered to do X and you're actually doing Y then you're not covered by an insurance policy and you're committing an offence. Simple as that, really.

Separate to that, there are provisions in the RTA and the MIB agreement which can require insurers to compensate victims of road accidents even when the driver wasn't covered by the policy. However they don't create a new insurance policy for you, nor do they modify the terms of your existing insurance policy. They're there to protect other people from the consequences of your uninsured driving - not to protect you from its consequences.

This was confirmed in a High Court case a few years ago - Telford v Ahmes and others. That case involved minicab drivers whose insurance policies didn't allow them to ply for hire - but the reason would be just as applicable to someone with SDP cover only who was using his car for business purposes.