As a London driver of many years , you grow accustomed to the number of foreign - registered cars on our roads. Now, French, Belgian, German , Italian & Spanish plates have always been prevalent here . In the past year , though, I have seen cars registered in the following countries ;
USA
Poland ( loads )
Qatar , Kuwait
Latvia, Lithuania
Romania & Bulgaria
Turkey
Lebanon
South Africa ( Cape Town labelled Discovery )
Eire
Russia
inter alia
My question is : what happens if they crash into you and it's their fault - how do you pursue them ? many of the Eastern Bloc cars are badly maintained & driven . These plates already offer immunity from parking tickets / speed cameras & the congestion charge . If my 80's diesel US pick up ( UK plated ) gets slapped with a huge road tax liability , what's stopping me from registering it say in Poland - it's already a left - hooker ?
Is something being done - or is it each to our own ?
Edited by motorprop on 18/12/2007 at 20:21
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Not just here. To quote one example, loads of British cars are driven around illegally by expats in France, no tax etc. Just check the long stay car park of any regional airport served by Ryanair.
Even here in Frankfurt it´s rare to see a British plated car with a valid tax disk.
Edited by PoloGirl on 18/12/2007 at 21:53
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well, you are wrong there , as UK road tax is only required in the UK . You only need to be MOT'd and insured to drive in the EU, road tax is of no concern to anyone outside blighty . Insurance I think only works for up to 6 months at a time abroad - differs per policy - but very difficult to disprove .
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"well, you are wrong there , as UK road tax is only required in the UK"
That's incorrect, your car has to be fully legal in it's country of origin.
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feign injury and get the plod involved , whiplash and an ambulance and dont forget to get the numberplate, got to keep the pink fluffy dice off the road , thats what you pay your insurance and fuel duty for nemind the blooming road tax
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 19/12/2007 at 01:13
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Cops aint interested because it aint a tick box excercise like a speeding ticket! just like there is no recording or checking or following up of people that have overstayed their visit to this country,but as long as your speeding the revenue keeps coming in so that it helps our Goverment send millions to countrys we blow up whilst our country declines around our ears.Best thing we brits can do is when polands empty & regenerated with european money is move out there! with an English number plate & no tax
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Cops aint interested >>
I thought that if there was injury to someone they had to record it....?
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Just to clarify to one of the posters above, UK registered cars in other EU countries are not liable for UK road tax, this is true. However, by not registering in the particular country of residence they are dodging local road tax and are also in a position to avoid parking tickets, speed cameras etc.
To answer the OP, I can relate my experience when I had a serious crash in Germany many years ago involving my british registered car and an italian registered car (I wasn't at fault by the way!). Obviously both cars were insured in their countries of registration so a rather complex situation. I got the insurance details of the italian driver on the spot and then passed them on to my insurance company. I guess this would be the same in the UK but I don't know from experience as I've never had a crash in the UK. My insurance company dealt with shipping the wreck back to the UK and they negotiated directly with the Italian insurance company to get me reimbursed for a new car. It all went very smoothly and I didn't have the impression that my insurance company was having difficulty with their italian counterpart. Obviously if the other driver is not insured or won't give your their details then you have a problem, but reading this and other forums this would appear to a risk also with british drivers as well as foreigners.
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Just to clarify to one of the posters above UK registered cars in other EU countries are not liable for UK road tax this is true.
The police where my father lives in France having been having a massive purge on Brit-registered cars with no valid road tax. And of course to get a new road tax, they need to do a ferry trip back to the UK to get an MOT (which has also often expired).
I understand the French police give only 7 or 14 days for the car to be made legal or higher penalties apply, so some very stressed Brits trying to get ferries etc booked at very short notice.
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"what's stopping me from registering it say in Poland"
Nothing except a minefield of red tape and a hefty import tax.
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If a vehicle is registered in the UK but used abroad - say in France for the sake of argument - surely it has to carry a valid UK tax disc? Otherwise it is not covered if using UK insurance and fraudulently using French insurance if this has been taken out on the understanding that the vehicle will be re-registered within a short time.
Barchettaman is right - walk round the car park at a French regional airport and there is plenty of evidence of Brits doing what, presumably, they wouldn't dream of doing at home.
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With cars adn lorries from 27 countries (mostly LHD) roaming freely about the EU it's going to get worse. Either we carry on with this mad "catch me if you can" scenario or we all tighten up the rules and allow exchanging of documents, passing on drivers' info across borders and, eventually, on the spot fines and wheel clamps for all.
Living and driving in Spain I am required to carry my licence and ALL car documents with me at all times and may be stopped at any time to have them checked. In practice this has happened 3 times in 16 years (terrorism related roadblocks) and I've been saluted and waved on my way in under a minute.
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Until every EU country speaks each others language cross border co-operation on small ticket items will never be achieved ,a friend works in the speed camera section in Dresden and if the reg is non German its binned to much trouble for 50euros.Can you imagine the man hours trying to deal with a Albanian reg car for a parking ticket.On the spot fines and vehicle clamping are the only things that work and you have to be pretty stationary for those.
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"I am required to carry my licence and ALL car documents with me at all times"
Same here, I wouldn't dare drive to the next lampost without my full documentation. A girl at my wife's company was stopped a few weeks ago and she'd allowed her insurance to go un-renewed only by a couple of days. They confiscated her Volvo on the spot, until it was sorted - she was actually driving a client to the airport at the time.
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it's because they are not at home - different rules apply . And being taxed or not does not affect your insurance. They cannot duck responsibility if the car is not taxed .
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nonsense , I know personally a couple of Poles who run their cars here , have been for at least 3 years with impunity. I also know a chap who's run a Jersey - plated car for 5 years and never once been stopped .
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"nonsense"
What's nonsense? Just because they do it doesn't make it legal.
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I'm sure some people won't bother registering!
www.german-number-plates.com/
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If you got stopped in Germany with a set those on your car they would through away the key,but to think that somebody could be driving in the UK with plates like that is frightening.
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I'm sure some people won't bother registering! www.german-number-plates.com/
Now I'm baffled. Is this a website selling german number plates to customers in the UK? If so, why?
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Quite a few BMW, Audi and Merc onwers use them at meetings, shows etc. My son has american number plate from the same copany with his name on his bedroom door ...good quality
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There surely ought to be an opportunity for some banana republic to offer registration to anyone in the world who applies, cf Panamanian registered ships.
Then everyone could display "plates of convenience" but be perfectly legally registered in another country.
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There is a guy in the next village to me who has a fairly old Golf with Uk registration but displaying it on a German-style plate complete with the German -EU symbol.
To be "authentic" it also uses a font which I imagine wouldn't meet the UK requirements.
Funnily enough his next-door neighbour imported a RHD car from Denmark a few years ago and ran it for about 18 months before a UK plate appeared on it.
I am baffled by this obsession in the UK with messing about with number plates.As far as I have observed drivers elsewhere in Europe have their egos under control and spend their money elsewhere.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 20/12/2007 at 18:24
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What is also intriguing is the selling of "stickers" for the number plates which just happen to correspond to those issued to show the equivalent of the MOT has been passed. Looks very naughty.
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>>"what's stopping me from registering it say in Poland"
>>Nothing except a minefield of red tape and a hefty import tax.
Import tax? Are you sure? The EU has surely put a stop to all that.
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No Import tax between EU states . My truck has a 6.9 V8 diesel engine and does about a 1000 - 1500 miles a year . If the gov't brings in some huge road tax I'll be registering it in somewhere like Poland .
Just for your info , HGV operators have been doing it for years to avoid £5k a year road tax , whole fleets registered in Europe , I've seen a few RHD tractor units on Dutch plates.
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"No Import tax between EU states"
Yes there is. I've done it. I've paid it. In Poland. It's related to age and engine size of vehicle.
Just for your info.
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Quote;
"Import tax? Are you sure? The EU has surely put a stop to all that"
Don't know about the rest of the EEC but Southern Ireland(EIRE) has a tax called VRT(Vehicle Registration Tax) when the car is first registered there.
It's between 21% and 30 % of its retail value second hand depending on engine size, emissions etc
A brand new car also attracts vat @ 21% on top of this
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"Import tax? Are you sure? The EU has surely put a stop to all that."
As of a year ago or so, there is/was still an import duty to pay on used cars imported to Poland. It's called Akcyza Tax and there is some equation related to age, value and engine size of vehicle. To reduce what you have to pay, you get a second invoice made out saying "sold as non-runner" or something like that with a much lower value printed on it and this is what you present with your documentation. I think this loophole has now been closed and the tax office evaluate the vehicle for you.
It's a tax to try and prevent the non stop stream of motors being dragged in from west Europe and to kick-start the Polish new car industry.
Maybe they are or will be reclassifying this tax as a registration charge, I dunno, I heard that was the case. Either way, I imported my last car to Poland, paid the taxes, stood in all the queues and got the t-shirt. Or maybe I've been taking too many hallucenogens and it was all just a dream.
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In addition, expats can register cars they bring with them without import tax, only if the've had them for more than a year before they enter the country and only once. And you need written permission from the minister for transport (for RHD vehicles). I've been down this route too and again with the "red tape and months of waiting" etc etc.
I'm sure everyone knows someone down the pub whose mate registers his car or his lorry or his fleet of trawlers legally and easily in some far off x-communist state to avoid millions in fines, duties, taxes etc but my genuine, first hand experience is different.
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