Left stranded, car towed cos of insurance error.

[VR6Joni 0]

My brother phoned me up for a lift home yesterday due to the following.

 

He bought himself a 3.2 quattro A3 a few months ago and thought all was well, until yesterday he was pulled for apparently driving without insurance. The police even phoned up his insurance company who said they have not insured that car. The police promptly called for the car to be towed. After being left stranded and told him his car had been taken to Northampton (from Barnsley which is miles away) he was given 6 points and a £200 fine and told it would cost him £150 for the recovery/storage fees.

God only knows how he felt at this point, but he called his insurance company with his full details only to find that he was defiantly insured and there had been an error on their system. They said they would pay the recovery fee so he could get his car back.

I was fuming when I got off the phone to him so I recon he must have been near suicidal.

 

What do you do if this happens to you, think I'd be sprawled over my car.

 

But surely the police should have been a little easier on him as nobody drives a car like that uninsured (he did claim that the police man was a bit of an :censored: ) Could they not have checked his paper documents as he only lived a few miles down the road??????

 

As for the insurance company :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored:

 

Just shows you how nanny state is kicking in, and how we are so called protected by the police/dvla databases.

 

Any views, or how to get a little compo from this incident would be nice.

[horney 0]

Same happened to a mate of mine and it was a total ball ache to get the points removed.

 

nick

[Sonicriot13 0]

But surely the police should have been a little easier on him as nobody drives a car like that uninsured

 

Mate, if only that was true. I used to work in motor insurance and we used to get calls from the police all the time. Checking up on all sorts of things. Porsches, Mercs, everything. A lot of them turned out to be uninsured. I wouldn't be hard on the police. I can understand you and your brother being p!ssed off with them but they were acting on false information supplied by yet another incompetent insurance company. :censored: :censored: :censored:

[Sonicriot13 0]

Oh, and as for compo try the Financial Ombudsmen Service after you've been through the insurer's own complaints procedure.

[Walesy 0]

Sh1t happens unfortunately, as much as I can understand that your mate's pissed off, it sounds like its a simple mistake down to the insurance company not having his car on the insurance database - the coppers were only doing their jobs and i'm glad they were! There's enough knobs driving around with no insurance regardless of what type of car so at least someone's out trying to put a stop to it.

 

If I was him, i'd certainly be looking to the insurance company for some sort of compensation though.

[StuartFZR400 0]

Its a ballzup, for the insurers to pay. Be interesting to know if they commonly make this mistake.

 

Basically, I'd start off with making full recovery of monies spent on getting back to the point before he got pulled over. That is, you need to itemise out every cost: phone calls, driving distances (at 40p per mile), recovery of car cost. That is costs of going to plod station to clear it all up too; inclusive of any postage/evelopes/stamps/paper etc costs. All of these you should be able to fairly claim back - it adds up. On top of that, you're looking for some compo' for time spent etc...

 

(be warey of discounts on future renewals on insurance, if your Bro is young, theres a chance the ins will be coming down a good deal with age and no claims anyhow.) I'd rather have cash-back.

[swiftkid 1]

I'd be fuming, to me the insurance company is just a major monopoly. They jus pick a price off the top of their heads and charge it, theres no way around it. If you don't have a crash thats a full year of say £800 in their back pocket for nothing, peace of mind, the very least they can do is get the details right. and of course if you ever do claim it takes absolutely forever and they will try and get out of it to no end, its like a scheme someone thought up like these retarded snowballing get rich quick schemes that the government approved.

 

No wonder theres so many people driving around uninsured, the cost of insurance for new drivers is out of this world, people who work hard for their money get absolutely raped regardless of what kind of driver they are.

 

I'd go to ombudsman and bleed them dry for inconvenience, stress, incompetance on their part, lack of transport, transportation back home. I'd also complain to the police because they are just powermad pricks that really don't want to listen to a word you have to say, if you have a sporty car your a criminal to them. i bet it would be ALOT different if you mentionned racism to them

[mic_VR 3]

I'd also complain to the police because they are just powermad pr**ks that really don't want to listen to a word you have to say, if you have a sporty car your a criminal to them. i bet it would be ALOT different if you mentionned racism to them

 

Sorry but I 100% don't agree with that statement. The police are not at fault here, and everything they have done can quite easily be undone. Driving without insurance is a crime which is out of control at the moment and the police are clamping down hard on it, and rightly so. The police don't maintain the insurance database, that is done by the insurance companies. And although some are telling the truth the police can't just believe every single story they are told by a member of public, if you're knowingly driving without insurance then you've got no problems trying to lie you way out of something.

 

Back to the original question.... I'd have thought there was good case for compo from the insurance company though so I'd agree with the others and just itemise all your expenses from the incident onwards and claim it back. Don't forget to value your own time for sitting on the phone, driving around etc, any loss of earnings and so on. Be interested to know how your bro gets on. Good luck to him.

[Yandards 0]

Got to agree that it's the insurance company at fault here. The police can only go with the information they are supplied with and if you consider the average insurance cost is increased by £70 at the last count simply to pay for uninsured drivers I would rather they did pull people.

 

As for the coppers attitude, you only need to watch the likes of Roads Wars etc to see that they are mostly resonable people and are just doing their job. Whilst I would be really hacked off they are not obligated to do any more that they have done; you are required by law to carry your driving documents with you.

 

As for complaints, get onto the insurance company and also try and get some form of compensation, after all there was some stress involved, your brother has wasted an afternoon sorting some of it out and will waste more of his time sorting the rest out (collecting the car, getting the points off etc) so just get him to bill them with his hourly rate of pay.

[swiftkid 1]

im not having a dig at the police with regards to the insurance details, fair enough the insurance database from what i've heard can at times but wrong. im sick to death of coppers with their powercrazed attitude. almost every copper that has pulled me or my friends over has been a prick, i don't drive like an idiot, i dont attract attention and go hangout in car parks but they just seem to want to threaten you with them taking your car away from you all the time and they are just not reasonable people.

 

ill provide an example quickly, my friend got pulled over in his mk2 golf vr6 conversation goes as follows

 

cop: right we've had complaints of people shouting abuse out the windows of your car last night and causing disturbances

 

friend: right, well my car was at home and i was in a pub with about 10 people which can vouch for me as well as the bar staff as i was drinking

 

cop: well if you do it again im going to take your car away from you.

 

my point is that its not too bad the police pull people over, thats fair enough, its the fact they just don't listen

 

back on topic, i think your brother needs to get an invoice to insurance on the case

[VR6Joni 0]

I understand where allot of you are coming from with the police only doing there job's, I do agree that they should be clamping down on the real criminals and I'm glad they do. BUT surely they should show some sort of sensibly discretion for genuine errors instead of going at it hammer and tong. If they had given him a little time to see what had happened it could have been sorted at the side of the road. (turns out it was an indiscretion with his no claims due to running 2 policies at once or something like that, but they failed to notify him)

I have seen road wars and have to admit most are cops seem very reasonable, however this cop did not appear to be a traffic officer, he seemed to be an armed response unit in an unmarked car without lights on. Which brings me to my second point, my bro recons he (the cop) was doing well over the speed limit when he caught him up, no light's or sirens, was he not breaking the law then!!!! :nono:

Also at the end of the incident my bro reckoned he was a right jumped up :censored: :censored: , surely this is an :epicfail: in developing relations with legit drivers.

Anyway there is light at the end of the tunnel, he's been to local cop shop and they have confirmed that he was actually insured and are dealing with retracting the fine/points. And the insurance company are coughing up for the car recovering. As for inconvenience, time and stress etc. this is a matter yet to be dealt with.

 

you are required by law to carry your driving documents with you.

Really, after this little episode think I may well be doing that, and I'm quite sure my bro will be.

 

Oh and finally why in gods name did they have to take the car 100 miles away. WTF.

[Jay2 0]

Surely the insurance company should be named and shamed!

 

Was it the Barnsley Brigade mate that pulled him? :camp:

[VR6Joni 0]

OK naming and shaming time.

It was Privilege.

And as for the cops it was a black brand new saloon A6, unmarked with no lights/sirens on the manvers, bloody quick aswell by the sounds of it.

[DanVW 0]

From what we have seen of the UK police recently your brother should consider himself lucky he didnt get shoved to the floor from behind or just shot in the head 7 times :cuckoo: :hitler:

[Philmo 0]

you are required by law to carry your driving documents with you.

Wasn't aware of that! [and have been drivin' 43 yrs]

By driving docs - do you mean licence and ins cert? Surely not log book & MOT cert as well?

[Philmo 0]

OK naming and shaming time.

It was Privilege.

And as for the cops it was a black brand new saloon A6, unmarked with no lights/sirens on the manvers, bloody quick aswell by the sounds of it.

Yes they're a bit keen on that run from Grimethorpe to Jn 36 [used to be part of one of my favourite circuits!]

Did your bro get a note of the errant police officer's ID?

The PC [politically crap?] could have used his judgement, erred on the safe side, and given yr bro a producer, having checked his address out.

[VR6Joni 0]

Yes they're a bit keen on that run from Grimethorpe to Jn 36 [used to be part of one of my favourite circuits!]

Did your bro get a note of the errant police officer's ID?

The PC [politically crap?] could have used his judgement, erred on the safe side, and given yr bro a producer, having checked his address out.

 

Well I would have thought that would be the sensible option because everything else obviously checked out, but noooooo, they must have thought lets outcast ourselves that bit more. Don't think my bro got PC's number but it might be on the fine. I doubt it's worth even trying to do anything because he was simply doing his job, be it a little hand over fist.

 

Think it's time to make the insurance company pay now as after all they were the root cause.

[dr_mat 0]

you are required by law to carry your driving documents with you.

Wasn't aware of that! [and have been drivin' 43 yrs]

By driving docs - do you mean licence and ins cert? Surely not log book & MOT cert as well?

 

Not true. You're not required to carry any documents ever. The law says that you must produce your documents WHEN REQUESTED, but that doesn't mean you have to carry them with you. You will be given seven days to show them at your local police station. If they have reason to believe that you will try something clever they must arrest you for something (and that can be suspicion of driving without insurance) at which point they have to do a ton of paperwork and you will then be required to produce your documents..

 

You have a right to remain anonymous unless the police arrest you for something. Fact is that if you're in a car they've probably already looked up your number plate anyway, but that's not the point. Don't give away your rights so easily. We don't have many left.

[Walesy 0]

Yeah true, i've been pulled a few times and have never had any docs on me, and have just been given a producer - even when the cars i've been in haven't been on the insurance data-base.

[BigTartanJudge 0]

VR6Joni,

 

You said your brother was given 6 points and a £200 fine by the police. I was under the impression that it was the courts / magistrates that decided what points / fine were to be issued or paid when considering the apparent offence and not up to the police at all ? There is no way the points could have been added to the licence there and then ?

[corozin 0]

VR6Joni,

 

You said your brother was given 6 points and a £200 fine by the police. I was under the impression that it was the courts / magistrates that decided what points / fine were to be issued or paid when considering the apparent offence and not up to the police at all ? There is no way the points could have been added to the licence there and then ?

 

You are of course completely right about that. The Police can't issue a FPN for this kind of offence, and it usually takes months to get to court.

[VR6Joni 0]

VR6Joni,

 

You said your brother was given 6 points and a £200 fine by the police. I was under the impression that it was the courts / magistrates that decided what points / fine were to be issued or paid when considering the apparent offence and not up to the police at all ? There is no way the points could have been added to the licence there and then ?

 

You are of course completely right about that. The Police can't issue a FPN for this kind of offence, and it usually takes months to get to court.

 

I never even thought about that, I'll see if I can get some further details regarding how this £200 fine came about. Then again I'm an engineer and generally think logically, law is well beyond my scope of thinking.

[Critical_Mass 10]

I think its a simply case of, when he says police he means the courts (the law). It is the courts that issue the fine and points. However you would think that if it went to court he would have highlighted the mistake the insurance has made. Thus points/fine not issued.

[VR6Joni 0]

The points and fine are now retracted pending confirmation :pale: . Assuming that goes well, the average person surely does not deserve all this hassle for somebody else's mistake.

 

Anyway, hope my bro takes the insurance company to the cleaners, although knowing him he'll loose hope after first rejection which is sure to come, think I'll give him a prod to sort this out properly.

 

I'll post the final outcome.

[Critical_Mass 10]

The points and fine are now retracted pending confirmation :pale: . Assuming that goes well, the average person surely does not deserve all this hassle for somebody else's mistake.

 

Anyway, hope my bro takes the insurance company to the cleaners, although knowing him he'll loose hope after first rejection which is sure to come, think I'll give him a prod to sort this out properly.

 

I'll post the final outcome.

 

I agree, no one should have to go through with it. Im sure its not an isolated case though, so i would guess the insures wont get 'taken to the cleaner' - even if maybe they should. The insurers should have an legal obligation to keep the database up-to-date.