How do you determine how someone is classified as "poor"?
If a person turned up in court in tracksuit bottoms and said they were poor but were on a 100k a year job, how would you know different?
They are required to fill in a statement of their means and they may be questioned on it. It is now an offence to fail to complete it.
Most offenders are poor because prosperous people usually buy car insurance!
This all seems far too lenient - agree on E, but D has got away lightly - all right he was banned but, come on, hes a persistent offender, he doesnt care - and the reason he doesnt care is he gets light sentences!
If these people are poor people who cannot afford a fine equivalent to the cost of motor insurance then it follows that they cannot afford a motor car and shouldn't therefore be driving.
I would confiscate their vehicles and give them substantial bans.
Presumably prosperous people buy car insurance because they might actually be forced to pay £££ if they cause an accident which leads to someone being seriously injured?
Apart from E, there is no deterrent to these people, who will more than likely offend again.
A. Disqualified for 2 months? How can you disqaulify someone who doesn't want a licence? He'll be back behind the wheel once your back is turned with 2 fingers stuck up in your direction.
B. He wont bother, why should he, his assylum claim is in the system, he will just disappear to offend again.
C. If she can't afford insurance, will she renew it (if she can afford it). She will probably drive again with no insurance, and when the MOT runs out that wont be renewed.
D. 3rd time without insurance? He wont buy it, his convictions prove it.
Driving while disqualified is a far more serious offence than driving without a full licence; people frequently do hard time for it. So A and D may well end up driving when they're banned, but if they do then they'll be in real trouble.
The only one I'm really surprised about is 'd' - his six month ban is from the totting -up system, which could just as easily come from bald tyres, speeding etc, so no additional ban for the actual repeated offence seems a bit lenient?
I do sort of wonder about this "too poor to have a car".
People drive cars without maintaining them, taxing them, insuring them.. all sorts of things because the expensive part of having a car is no longer the "buying the actual car".
The problem is that public transport really is so terrible that people have no option but to have a car. It's very, very hard to not have a car and secure employment; bosses just won't tolerate you being late every other day because the trains just didn't work that day.
And, frankly, public transport is more expensive than owning a car; and I mean more expensive than owning a nice car.
People don't notice it because the bills come as a pound here and a pound there instead of as five hundred quid in one go.
It costs four hundred pounds to put tyres on my car, but they'll do 35,000 miles of driving (3 years) before they pass below my "replace them" level. {They're getting a bit thin now and aren't performing as I expect. I check them and they're about 2/3 of the way through their legal lifespan}
That's a penny a mile. Servicing is 600 quid to cover that distance; 2p a mile. Petrol is 20p a mile. Tax is a penny a mile. Insurance is a biggie. Sports car, 6 years no claims -- all of 6p a mile.
30p a mile running costs. So it costs 60p to get me and the other half to the city centre. The bus fare there would be 2 quid.
Yikes.
{Of course there's depreciation in there as well, but I consider that the cost of a spiffing car. A hundred quid car wouldn't incur that}
Yes, but you wouldn't pay a £2 bus fare, you'd buy a £7 pass that would cover all your bus journeys anywhere in town for a week.
If you're daft enough to live somewhere which is both a long way away from where you work /and/ not in a city or medium-sized town, then public transport is dodgy. Otherwise, you don't *need* a car.
Katie:
I suspect your running cost calculations are somewhat optomistic. Especially for running around town. How on earth you get tyres to last 35,000 miles is beyond me.
Mind you if you only live 2 miles from the city centre, two pounds is an exhorbitant bus fare. Where I live 1.50 will get you a return ticket for the 4 miles to the town. Thats 8 miles for 1.50, no contest.
If it's only 2 miles, and you needed the money, then that is not far at all to walk.
You haven't included the cost of AA/RAC/Green flag membership in our totals (which is an absolute necessity IMHO) or breakdowns (inevitable). There are also all the little extras to add on. Parking will be much more than the bus fare for any length of time alone. Wiper blades, Oil, Headlamp bulbs it all adds up.
Your most obvious omission is the cost of insuring the car. I have no idea of your age but from you cost estimate I can pretty well assume you are not a younger driver, probably have a clean license and don't have an accident record. You probably also park off the street and have a newer car (less easy to steal)
For a younger driver with points / past ban or an accident record driving an old banger the bill will easily be in the 2000 pound or above range.
-grin-
I included the insurance, the RAC cover came with the car and so far in its life, it's needed 1 bulb replacing. As for tyres doing under 35,000 miles, what on EARTH are you doing to them? I reckon on getting 30,000 out of the front ones and 40,000 out of the back ones... even when I change them they're still legal. I do buy good quality ones, but that's why they're 100 quid each. And I'm hardly a sedate elderly driver...
Bizarrely, I did get my insurance upcosted at one point despite having full no-claims; I seem to average being crashed into once a year, but it's usually being rammed by someone who's tailgating me for obeying the speedlimits {Hence the clean licence} and hence it gets settled in my favour. But since I "attract accidents" as they put it, they put my insurance up anyway.
Yes. That's right. I got my insurance put up because I won't break speed limits.. not a good message for people to be sending...
As has been pointed out, the incentives here are perverse. Is there no administrative mechanism to enforce insuring cars? In many US states, you can't renew the registration on your car without the car being insured. One hand washes the other: the insurance companies verify insurance status for the departments of motor vehicles; the departments provide the insurance companies with lists of cars involved in accidents. Surely there's an equivalent in Britain to registration renewal. The tax disc?
Can I just clarify it's only third-party personal injury insurance we're talking about here?
Correct
We had one just like "Mohammed" today. Albanian asylum seeker, on appeal against application turn-down. Driving around with no documents. Was most indignant when told that ignorance was no defence. Fined at fixed penalty level, then we had to endure his yelling until he was removed. He had zero money, so our chairman's advice to "sell the car" only made him yell more.
There are more than 1 million drivers without insurance in this country. That's 1 in every 20 cars you see. Think of that next time you're going flat-out on a busy motorway.
I have to say I'm staggered at the leniancy of these 'punishments'. I can see no incentive for any of these people to get insurance as a result of their experince in court. I can appreciate that fines must take a persons earning capacity into account but if you are going to let them pay at £5 a week anyway, then why not make them pay £5 a week for the next three years?
Also your statement about 'expired insurance being less serious than never held' - I can't see the mother of the child they knock down seeing the two any different. I can understand non-deliberate circumstances (I agree wholeheartedly with your verdict on John) being accepted as some kind of mitgation but Charlene clearly knew it had expired and just decided she didn't care enough to worry about it.
btw withJohn's case, you do not mention if there is any action that can be taken against the company concerned - is this posible?
Sorry to ask you to pass a summary judgement but...A question arose regarding a fellow work collegue who observed that the road tax was out on his work vehicle when he returned from holiday. It was the responsibility of the accounts department to arrange the provision of valid tax discs (he had reminded them prior to his break). Informing his line manager he was told that it was "in the post" to him. This is no longer an excuse for individuals but how would he be judged if "ordered" to drive said vehicle sans tax? I don't know if it is relavent but this was in scotland. He did drive said vehicle but was not very happy about it.
ps great site, very informative and entertaining.
Just on the 'public transport is more expensive than a car' thread. If you live in London's Zone 2, an annual ticket - which covers tube journeys across a hundred square miles, all buses for the whole of Greater London and a decent chunk off rail fares for fifty miles out - is eight hundred quid a year, give or take. I doubt I could insure a car for that, let alone afford the tax, petrol, maintenance and the congestion charge. Or the cost of the car.
So if you can afford it and don't need to go places public transport can't take you, it's a bargain (even with a few cab fares on top).
If you can't afford to pony up 800 quid (or if you can't get work to give you a tax-free loan, payable back monthly from salary, because you're holding down a decent job), then it all gets a lot more expensive at a minimum of £1.20 a bus trip, no matter how local. Being poor is a very good way of incurring really big bills.
Against that, buying a £100 banger (less than a month's worth of buses at four trips a day) and hoping you don't get pulled might seem like a good idea.
I know it's terribly unfashionable, but from each according to their means and to each according to their needs might work a bit better than giving all the breaks to those who don't need them. Or is it just that lack of money indicates a terrible lack of morality? Why else are the courts full of people with no money?
R
(oh, and another thing. My first new car, and I didn't know what to do about insurance. I asked a seriously wealthy acquaintance, who seemed to be very good at not spending money on things he didn't enjoy. "Call Bob on XXXX," he said, "and say I sent you." So I did. "Right, Rupert," said Bob, somewhat misunderstanding the situation. "When did you want the cover note to have started from?". Things might have tightened up by now, but twenty years ago it was perfectly possible - by accident, even - to find a compliant broker who'd do a retrospective insurance policy if you got caught with your pants down. If you were well connected...)
A question to Jose: I'm staggered by your figure of a million uninsured cars on the road. Is this a reliable statistic? If it is the case, we should be calling for random police checks of insurance documents, not just alcohol or other substances.
Thankfully, as more and more insurance details are held on PNC, and now the ANPR cameras can identify uninsured drivers that merely drive past a camera, we may start being able to turn the tide on this one and start processing more people for no insurance.
I personally think we should also have a visible insurance disc similar to a tax disc to prove a vehicle is insured (and one for being registered for that matter).
Of course, this will increase the burden on people like Bystander and his colleagues if more and more people are brought in for no insurance. Maybe we need "traffic courts"...
"Is there no administrative mechanism to enforce insuring cars? In many US states, you can't renew the registration on your car without the car being insured."
Same in the UK. You have to show a registration document, an insurance certificate and a roadworthiness certificate.
So... if you don't have insurance you just don't get the tax disk, either....
The police basically could use all their available time and more pulling people for expired tax disks (and concomitant other offences).
There's considerable evidence we have less traffic officers than we used to, and speed camera's don't check for a reg disk.
A million uninsured?
It's worse than that. The DVLA have fessed up that 5% of their vehicles have invalid keeper information and another 5% simply have no information at all. A sizeable number of cars on the road are clones (to avoid speed cameras and parking tickets).
Makes you feel safe doesn't it?
Melina - The figure of one-in-twenty uninsured motorists comes from the ABI: Association of British Insurers. Their website abi.org.uk may have more details. I took the figure from a recent article by Justin Jacobs. He adds that 13% of all drivers (about one-in-seven) admit to having driven uninsured at some time.
A simple observation, perhaps food for thought for the assembled minds here: In all my years sitting in road traffic courts, I have never yet seen any offence involving insurance, test certificate, VEL, etc., on a car less than ten years old.
Am I the only one here who is not a right wing throw them all in jail middle class 5 bedroom detached house owner?
Reading these posts you would think so!!
I Like the way you bring reason into your argument, that is always worth the price of entry itself.
A query about E (John) does anyone go after the employer?
To respond to Ian's comments. 2 of my team of engineers have company cars (instead of their own vehicles). car Fleet are responsible for VED etc. If the VED disc has not arrived by the 1st of the month, they get hire cars until it is recieved.
You cannot order any employee to break the law - in this case failure to display.
Another constable
APNR cannot detect uninsured vehicles!
It can detect untaxed vehicles which are probably also uninsured - but that is a far as it goes.
The reason is that in UK we insure the driver rather than the vehicle. My insurance (in common with the majority) allows me to drive insured with any car regardless of the contents of any DVLA/PNC database
pat:
That's an easy one to resolve. Every car has a registered keeper (with a driving license number on the log book, which nobody fills in, but I'm sure some civil servant figures it out when you send it in.)
You can check for insurance under two cases:
A. ABI has a record of insurance against the car, either for named drivers or any driver.
B. Registered keeper has an ABI record indicating that he has any car insurance.
If anyone drives the car and comes up on ANPR without insurance, then gotcha.
Sorry, wrong.
Every car does NOT have a registered keeper with a driving licence number.
Leasing companies etc are registered keepers, but there is no such thing as a company driving licence. Also, can you point out any piece of legislation that requires the registered keeper of a vehicle to be a driver?
If I drive a car registered to somebody else but uninsured by them, on my insurance then I am certainly driving whilst insured but it isn't going to be on any database
If you're daft enough to live somewhere which is both a long way away from where you work /and/ not in a city or medium-sized town, then public transport is dodgy. Otherwise, you don't *need* a car.
Work is not the only reason people need to travel, no matter where they're "daft enough" (excuse me?) to live. And public transport is equally dodgy in some medium-sized towns, and sometimes even a short distance away from big cities.
FWIW, four out of five decisions seem pretty fair to me but I think "Jason" got off extremely lightly. He's a piss-taker, as someone said on the previous thread.
Having wandered to this interesting site from Ireland I thought I'd add my two pence worth. I cannot tax my car without showing my insurance cert. I also have to show an insurance disc in the windscreen in the same way as I show a tax disc. Non display of both is liable to a fine.
The tax discs came in about ten years ago after assorted scandals about people driving with no insurance. You get sent the cert from your insurance company the same way as you do in the UK and down in the bottom right hand corner is the tear of part you stick on the windscreen.
It seems to have worked in as much as statistics can tell, and you don't get the response if someone clips you in traffic that you used to of "I'm not insured so who cares".
However we will not go into the insane Irish idea that you can drive unaccompanied by a qualified driver on a provisional licence.
Sorry, I meant to say it was "Patrick" was the piss-taker. "Jason" deserves a slap but not to the same extent.
"If you're daft enough to live somewhere which is both a long way away from where you work /and/ not in a city or medium-sized town, then public transport is dodgy. Otherwise, you don't *need* a car."
What if you are lucky enough to get a job, but it is miles from where you live? It could take several months to save up the money to move - deposit, first month rent, hire of van etc.
I used to live in the UK, but now live in New Zealand. In NZ, there is no requirement to have car insurance, and thus no offences relating to lack of insurance.
Of course, most drivers (and parents of young drivers) choose to have insurance, as its a fairly sensible thing to do. On the other hand, insurance costs here are a fraction of that in the UK. Our kids have a Honda Concerto, insurance for which is 270NZD (about 102 quid), a UK mate of his says insurance in NZ would be about 1500 quid...
If one doesnt have insurance, one is personally liable for any damages and awards that a court may subsequently award, a fried of the kids is $8000 in debt at age 18 through having no insurance.
Oops - two inaacuracies in previous note.
A) The 155UKP insurance cost would be for the UK, not NZ.
B)The chap $8000NZ in debt is now aged 35, the debt having being incurred at age 18, and hes been paying since age 18.
I appreciate the concern which is been rose. The things need to be sorted out because it’s not about the individual but it can be with everyone
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