driving without road tax

[barryworrall]

hi, can anybody help me please. i was stopped in december for driving without road tax, as it had expired. i was then told to produce my docs to the police station and i backdated tax disk. i did this, so when i have just recieved a court summons saying that i was not insured at the time even though i provided all the documents and i was insured, i also recieved the 80 pound fine, which i paid.

also what are the posible fines that i would face if or when i do go to court?

can anybody give me some advice please.

[NORMANTHEDOG]

Well i hope you get fined �1000 and get banned for 3 yrs,because we dont need people like you on the road mate,NO TAX,NO MOT,means your insurance company would have not payed out on any accident at the time,try to be more sensible in future.

[sholay]

why the long box?

[andy-hughes]

If you had insurance at the time, write to the court and enclose a copy of the appropriate certificate. What was the �80 fine for?

[barryworrall]

the fine was for an out of date tax disk, id just returned from an exersize in the army,and it was december 23rd, i didnt realise it was out of date.

thx

[devilhunter]

Back dating the tax disc will still incur a fine but if you have insurance then whether you have a tax disc or not does not matter.You do not have to have a taxed car to get insurance as you have to show insurance to get a tax disc ! plus you can drive an untaxed car to a pre arranged MOT too.

I would fight the no insurance summons if you were insured at the time you were stopped but you cannnot backdate insurance though.

[barryworrall]

thx for the help, iv always had a full insurence, as my mum works for norwhich union. i will be fighting it as i have all the paperwork, to say that i handed it in

[wendilla]

Iwould have thought if your mum works for norwich union she would know that if you had been involved in an accident your insurance would be invalid in the eyes of the law as you were driving your vechicle with no tax.So this would be how courts look at it no tax no insurance even though you have the insurance document. And your car was nearly a month out of tax.

[flip-flop]

Driving without tax does not have a single bearing on the validity of your insurance.

Ignore anybody who says it does.

[wendilla]

To Flip-flop I think you will find the legalities of the law is as barryworrall was not taxed and if he had been involved in an accident therefor insurance is invalid so it works both ways if car is not taxed insurance becomes invalid when caught driving without tax.

[JudgeJ]

flip-flop is quite right. Having no tax (or no MoT certificate, or even no driving licence) does not invalidate your insurance. Being disqualified from driving (which is not the same as having no driving licence) does.

If you have been summonsed for having no insurance and you can prove that you were covered you need to bring this to the Court�s attention. Different areas of the country have different procedures. In some areas the documentation will be examined by the prosecutor at Court on the day of the hearing. In others documentation will not be examined in Court. Instead they will ask you to go to a specified police station to have your documents examined. Either way you will need to show that you were covered at the time you were stopped.

Magistrates� guidelines for a first offence of no insurance are a fine of one week�s income and six penalty points. Most areas impose a minimum fine regardless of income, usually around �200. You will receive a discount of one third (of the fine, not the points) if you plead guilty.

You should answer the summons by appearing as requested. If you can prove that you had insurance then do so. If you cannot do so then plead guilty and get the maximum credit.

[wendilla]

ok then why does insurance company refuse to pay out if you are involved in an acciident and your car is untaxed. as I have read this in several cases.

[stanleyman]

Whether they pay out or not has no bearing on the validity of the insurance, they will find any excuse not to pay.

[stanleyman]

You need to be able to prove you submitted your details to the required police station in time, sometimes this is not recorded or a mistake is made and an automatic summons appears. The station should have a record book so you could ask to see it.

If it gets to court you tell and show them you did have insurance which was produced as required so you don't know why you are there, unless you were summons for not producing it in time in which case you may need to plead guilty and give excuses for failing to produce documents which shouldn't be so bad. Arrive early and there may be a duty solicitor at court who can advise you further.

[barryworrall]

hi, iv just been in touch with the police, they stated that i didnt have insurence at the time, as it did not start untill a few days later. i was then told to take the doc down to my local police station and it would be sorted out.

thanks everyone

[flip-flop]

Nowhere in a motor insurance policy will you find anything that alludes to the policy being invalid of you have no tax.

The policy document is the contract between the insured person and the insurance company - as there is nothing in the policy document that states or is implied that you are uninsured if you have no tax, then there is nothing the insurer can contractually do about it: insurance and taxation are two entirely separate subjects.

In this particular instance wendilla you are incorrect.

[erimus1]

He did not state that he had not MOT or Insurance Norman - There is a distinction between a car being 'roadworty' and 'road legal'. If a car has no tax, then it is not road legal. However this does not nulify an isurance plicy - this is onley doen if a car is not 'roadworty' - no MOT. In this isnstance, it sound like the vehicle was insured and mot'd as you say thatyou produced the documents. The decision to proscute for motoring offences is not done by the Prosecution Service, it is still done by the police, so they may have made an error.

If your documents are correct, then you must contest the charges in court. Ofcourse, this does not excuse you in having no tax.

[gouldc]

I am confused as to why no tax meant you were not insured - this is not the case (this is my profession by the way). Also, NORMANTHEDOG, this is a misconception held by the general public - we, as insurers, cannot prejudice a policyholder for not having a valid tax disc on their vehicle, or for not having a valid MOT certificate at the time of an accident - we can make a deduction, but not if you can prove there was an oversight on your behlaf, otr that the vehicle was serviced regularly and would have passed an MOT

[JudgeJ]

This seems to be getting out of hand!

barryworral, you say you have been summonsed for the offence of no insurance. It seems from what you say (your post of today at 11:40) that the police are suggesting that your insurance did not start until after the time you were stopped. If this is so you are guilty, if it is not so, you are not guilty. In either case you should proceed down the appropriate route as I advised in my post of today at 10:34.

There is no �grey area� here. You either had insurance to cover you at the relevant time or you did not. The onus is upon you to show that you did. The issue concerning your lack of tax disc is irrelevant. Having no insurance certainly prevents you from obtaining a tax disc but (despite what has been said) driving a vehicle untaxed does not invalidate your insurance.

Also, check your summons. As stanleyman suggests, you may also find that you have been summonsed for not producing your Certificate within seven days. These two offences are mutually exclusive. That is to say you cannot be guilty of both. If you have no insurance you will not be charged with failing to produce � you cannot produce what you do not have.

Go to Court on the appointed day and get it sorted out. By the way, despite stanleyman�s idea, you will not be able to see the duty solicitor unless he or she is scratching round for something to do and is feeling benevolent (both unlikely!). Last year rules were introduced restricting access to the duty solicitor to those people charged with imprisonable offences only. I expect somebody will say otherwise, but the last time I looked, driving with no insurance was not something for which you could be sent to prison.

[wendilla]

I apologise if I got some of this wrong but I will still say that if you are involved in an accident and you have insurance the insurance will not pay out if your car wasn't taxed at the time and I do know you dont need tax or mot to insure a car as you may just be keeping it off road for awhile . so i would have thought insurance is invalid if running on road without tax and caught and if that is not right WELL IT SHOULD BE.

[Gef]

Wendilla please be very careful next time you go out in your car. If what you have said is correct (I doubt it) then if you are hit by an untaxed car you will have to claim on your own insurance and lose your no claims bonus.