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Wed 6 Feb 2013 22:08

Any - No car insurance - tony g

Hi all.
an interesting article in our local paper .

A local motorist was stopped by police because her car insurance didn't appear on the police national computer .

The police had her car towed to a secure compound ,but gave her a lift home because she had her young daughter with her . The woman then showed police the cover note for her car which she had reinsured with her usual broker two days previously .
The police confirmed she was insured ,but refused to reimburse the tow in charge of £150 , saying that if your car didn't show on the PNC .They were entitled to seize it and charge for towing away .It seems that her insurer had not entered her details on the MID .

It seems wrong to me that the towing fee was still payable even though the driver was insured .
Anybody else come across this

Edited by tony g on 06/02/2013 at 22:08

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Wed 6 Feb 2013 22:11

Any - No car insurance - Bromptonaut

The towing fee is payable to a contractor working for the police.

As she wasn't on the MIB database the police had good cause to tow.

I don't think she'd need to go to the insurance ombudsman to get the fee re-imbursed by the errant insurer.

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Wed 6 Feb 2013 22:46

Any - No car insurance - tony g

However no offense was committed , but she still had to pay the fee ,which she may ? be able to recover from her insurer .
Couldn't the police use thier discretion on this one .

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 10:38

Any - No car insurance - Bromptonaut

Couldn't the police use thier discretion on this one .

What, so the taxpayer bears the cost instead of the motorist?

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 13:17

Any - No car insurance - Sulphur Man

Yes. A drop in an ocean. £150 is the thinnest point of the thinnest end of a very fat wedge of police blundering.

For instance, Sussex Police managed to run up £20,000 of repair bills in 36 months by misfuelling their vehicles. And that's still the thin end of the wedge.

This driver/owner has had to fork out £150 because the insurance validation process is broken.

If the police choose to use a computer database for spot checks of insurance, the database should be regulated and updated in real-time, a capability of virtually any business computer information system in the last 20 years.

Until the process is fixed, they should allow the owner/driver to produce valid insurance within an agreed timeframe, as before (3 days wasnt it).

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Wed 6 Feb 2013 22:51

Any - No car insurance - Ethan Edwards

I was stopped by Essex Police couple of years ago for not having my car show up as insured on the MIB. We talked for 20 minutes, they phoned the company and I was indeed insured just that the company hadn't put me on yet (13 days delay). They were nice polite and at no time did they even mention towing or taking the car (a few months old) away.

May be more to the original story than the OP knows. Unless I found the only nice Traffic Police in the UK?

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Wed 6 Feb 2013 23:54

Any - No car insurance - Galaxy

The police should know you can't rely 100% on the MIB database. Some companies don't update for several days and, also, like any database that's entered by people using keyboards, there are mistakes in it.

The police should always telephone the insurance company to check for the latest information. In the example given I would say the police are at fault for not carrying out this vital check.

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 02:32

Any - No car insurance - 1litregolfeater

Absolutely. Ignorance of the law has never been a defence.

Quite novel to see the police using it though!

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 11:24

Any - No car insurance - dacouch

Not quite the same circumstances but an interesting case for future reference.

tinyurl.com/a3g6ufr

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 11:37

Any - No car insurance - Cris_on_the_gas

suppose we should always carry certificate of insurance with us when driving, that way it would remove the grounds that the officer has suspection that the vehicle is being driven in contravention of s.162 of the road Traffic act.

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 11:43

Any - No car insurance - madf

suppose we should always carry certificate of insurance with us when driving, that way it would remove the grounds that the officer has suspection that the vehicle is being driven in contravention of s.162 of the road Traffic act.

It is just common sense to carry the Certificate - or a copy - in case of an accident.

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 12:50

Any - No car insurance - Rats

suppose we should always carry certificate of insurance with us when driving, that way it would remove the grounds that the officer has suspection that the vehicle is being driven in contravention of s.162 of the road Traffic act.

It is just common sense to carry the Certificate - or a copy - in case of an accident.

But, if you watch the multitude of TV programmes that feature this happening, having a paper copy of the certificate doesn't wash, as "most people cancel after they get the certificate" allegedly!

Something needs to be done, yes, stopping & seizing uninsured vehicles and subsequent disposal of them is great, BUT, cases like this one prove that the system doesn't work, so why should the innocent be penalised?

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 13:10

Any - No car insurance - Bromptonaut

Unfortunately a paper certificate prooves nothing. Sure there's a problem with cancelled policies but even complex or watermarked cerificates can be faked on a high st printer.

If the public want, as is oft asserted, serious consequences including the seizure and crushing of cars then there will be hard cases. Missed installments, muck ups betwixt insurer and MID, miss-spellings of names and named drivers are just the obvious ones.

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 15:46

Any - No car insurance - skidpan

"cases like this one prove that the system doesn't work"

Proves nothing at all other than occationally mistakes occur.

But how many mistakes are there compared to genuine uninsured vehicles removed form the road and crushed.

I accept its unfortunate but the world is not perfect and there is no fool proof system but it the occational mistake is made keeping countless thousands of uninsured drivers off the road then so be it.

The fact that the driver is still being charged for the tow when supposedly not guilty proves to me there is more to this story than we are being told.

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 18:21

Any - No car insurance - tony g

( The fact that the driver is still being charged for the tow when supposedly not guilty proves to me there is more to this story than we are being told.)

Not this time skidpan ,
In today's paper an article confirms that the insurance broker have confirmed that they were at fault ,they have said that they will pay the £150 towing fee and will pay an additional £150 ,to cover the distress and inconvenience caused .
A good result , well done Swinton.

In terms of actually loading the information on to the MID ,part of the above article suggests that if a case like the above went to court ,as a penalised driver attempted to recover the towing charge . The courts ruling would be that the insurance company should transfer the data in a reasonable time ?
Anything up to a week could be considered reasonable ,couldn't it .

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 18:34

Any - No car insurance - daveyjp

Rather than the certificate it is better to have the insurnace company 24/7 emergency number at hand. If stopped give it to the police they can then call it and confirm cover.

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 19:04

Any - No car insurance - Collos25

I agree with Tony in this case the police were so inept and amatuer its beyond believe I have a house in the same city as Tony and I thing he will agree the police in this area are at best useless.There is a large proportion of the cities population who drive round without any legality and the police just turn there heads and look elsewhere.

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 19:27

Any - No car insurance - tony g

Collos is right ,

It's an ongoing problem in our part go the world ,drivers without any licence ,insurance ,or mot are stopped and prosecuted all the time .It doesn't seem to deter others from doing the same thing .

Perhaps a second offence in a defined period should result in a 3 month jail sentence .It seems that for some drivers it's cheaper to pay the fines than it is to insure ,tax and maintain a car .

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 19:25

Any - No car insurance - Armitage Shanks {p}

If you have an insurance certificate, in your car, and the police choose to query it let them ring the insurance company right then and there and establish the validity of the certificate, or otherwise

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 19:31

Any - No car insurance - jamie745

Seems extremely unfair for the motorist to be punished for their insurers mistake.

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 21:16

Any - No car insurance - Armitage Shanks {p}

More a delay in updating the MID database that a mistake really, it can't be instantaneous. A bit like time to clear a cheque!

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Thu 7 Feb 2013 21:39

Any - No car insurance - nick62

More a delay in updating the MID database that a mistake really, it can't be instantaneous. A bit like time to clear a cheque!

I would disagree with that comment AS. It used to take three days to make a BACS payment, it now takes about 2 minutes (or less).

All it takes is the will of "the system" to get their fingers out of ther backsides!

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