Watch Out - Is that your car being crushed!

[SteveLP]

Government officials will be allowed to clamp, tow away and destroy uninsured vehicles even if they are parked on private driveways under legislation due to come into effect in June.

http://www.confused.com/news/motoring/c ... ontent=May

[robert_e_smart]

I must point out that this only applies to vehicles that are not on a SORN.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/Ow ... /DG_067639

The continuous insurance enforcement scheme will provide a new fixed penalty for people who ignore official reminders that their insurance has expired. This will apply to vehicles that are not declared as being off the road through SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification) and not insured. Continuing offenders will risk having their vehicle seized and destroyed.

http://www.mib.org.uk/Motor+Insurance+D ... efault.htm

It is now a legal offence to keep a vehicle without insurance unless you have notified the DVLA that your vehicle is being kept off the road and have a valid Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN)

[SteveLP]

Qute true - thanks for pointing that out.

It is however quite worrying that a government agency is allowed to enter your private premises and remove your car. Let's hope that there isn't any mix-up on the paperwork. Crush first, ask questions later.

[Dieselman]

This is all working on the assumption that the car is taxed but not insures, which is likely to be a situation only for cars being used uninsured.

[minijet]

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This is all working on the assumption that the car is taxed but not insures, which is likely to be a situation only for cars being used uninsured.

So, we're automatically 'presumed' guilty then

Rapists, murderers, terrorists don't get their property confiscated.
It seems that it's just motoring offences (that havn't been committed but might be) that are punishable by government theft.

I don't know who's worse, the crooks that run the country or the rest of us for letting it happen.

Paul

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[rowanmoor]

This is all working on the assumption that the car is taxed but not insures, which is likely to be a situation only for cars being used uninsured.

Alas that is not so.

It makes it a right pain when you replace a car without trading the old one in at the same time. We did this recently and luckily weren't changing the insurance over, but had we been we would have had to double up the insurance. You get you new car and change your insurance over to it, but that leaves the old car uninsured. As you are in the process of selling it you don't want to cash in the tax as it sells better with 6 months+ tax on it. What do you do? The sensible thing is to keep it on private land for a few weeks while you sell it (yes there is an issue with test drives as it is uninsured). Alas you can't do that any more - you either have to take out a second insurance policy or SORN it making it harder to sell.

Also - it assumes that insurance companies will not make mistakes updating the MID. When I had an accident a few years ago the insurance had removed the insurance flag on it before even speaking to me about what I wanted to do/whether I wanted to claim. They just assumed they would write it off and terminated the insurance before doing anything else. In that instance I was even driving uninsured as they did not inform me! If they can manage that level of incompetence then I have no doubt that a few cars will be crushed due to 'administrative errors' on the part of the insurers.

And I doubt there are many people who are intentionally driving uninsured but do have the car registered in their name and have taxed it! Usually uninsured drivers are either driving someone else's car that is insured but not for that driver, or they don't have TAX or the correct name/address on the V5.