Police cars exempt from Road Tax?

[Brett928S2]

Oakey said:

Going off topic for a second. Brett's posts make me laugh, it's the way he starts each post with 'hi' and a smile.

Hi

Two reasons...

1, I am generally a happy person and a little smile never goes amiss..

2, I have posted like this for over 20 years, so hardly likely to change now..

All the best Brett

[Cat]

Anti Macassar said:

Cat said:

Nedrick said:

They don't need insurance if a large enough sum is deposited IIRC

Anti Macassar said:

Police forces have to buy third party insurance from the most competitive insurer, or give security of £500,000 to the Supreme Court, as can anyone else.

Not trying to be pedantic but this is not the case.

The following groups are exempt from requiring third party insurance

• Crown vehicles
• Police authority vehicles
• Local authority vehicles
• Vehicles where the owner has deposited £500,000 with the Supreme Court

Cat

Police Authorities are separate and different from police force.

You're right, but Police authorities "own" vehicles belonging to a force therefore no requirement for insurance.

Cat

Edited by Cat on Sunday 19th October 11:50

[Hollywood Wheels]

Brett928S2 said:

You sure you are a Police Person ??

Who said I was a Police 'person'? I quite clearly state what I am in my profile.

[14-7]

Hollywood Wheels said:

I quite clearly state what I am in my profile.

[Mg6b]

Any vehicle that has any defect or does not comply with the RTA or any regulation should stay in the yard.

If that means that the public cannot be served by the use of deploying officers to calls for help by that method, then so be it!
My view is they get on their pedal bikes (having taken the NCALT cycle course and passed it or walk!).

Any officer that takes a vehicle without checking it runs the risk of prosecution if the defect is reported or the vehicle is involved in an incident where it is subsequently examined and found to be defective in any way and also so does the force the vehicle is owned by.

Commendable intentions are all very well where leaping out of briefing into the nearest car and taking off in a cloud of blue smoke to assist our most grateful public without so much as noting that it has 4 tyres on it!
The bottom line is that if it is on the public road and does not comply, it gives right and just cause for complaint and can lead to unnecessary grief for the officer concerned with a good deal of embarrassment for the police authority.

Taking a whole 60 seconds to 2 minutes making sure the vehicle is legal will rarely mean the difference between life and death!

[vonhosen]

Brett928S2 said:

Oakey said:

Going off topic for a second. Brett's posts make me laugh, it's the way he starts each post with 'hi' and a smile.

Hi

Two reasons...

1, I am generally a happy person and a little smile never goes amiss..

2, I have posted like this for over 20 years, so hardly likely to change now..

All the best Brett

You are the son of p1esk AICMFP.

All the best Von

[Greendubber]

Brett928S2 said:

Greendubber said:

andmole said:

vonhosen said:

Brett928S2 said:

14-7 said:

Oakey said:

That's kind of the point i've been trying to make, clearly those serving officers here would like to argue the toss why they should be excluded from following the rules whilst they'd be all too eager to 'uphold the law' if it was a member of the public failing to abide by them.

So if a few cars in the local nick aren't displaying tax discs do you expect them not to use the vehicles?

Hi

YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YOU CANNOT HAVE 1 LAW FOR US AND 1 FOR YOU

All the best Brett

Yep, no tax disc = don't take the vehicle out.

All other BiB take note, one of your own, who many (myself included) have a great deal of respect for, has spoken.

Noted, although its not as easy as that. A lot of the time you get turned out without having chance to check a vehicle. I know when I'm running across the car park to jump in a car to go out to a job I dont check if there's a tax disc. Perhaps I should but I'd rather be getting to where I'm needed than wasting more of my time doing pointless tasks....we have enough of them already.

Hi

I must remember that as an excuse next time I get caught for not displaying a tax disc....

You think obeying the law is pointless ????

Why not go out into your yard...see how many have no discs and do something about it ???

All the best Brett

I didnt say obeying laws is pointless, I said checking a tax disc before jumping in the car to stop someone getting their face filled in is. Sometimes we cant do the right thing for doing wrong.

Currently all our vehicles have tax discs in them, they're even in date too. I made sure I checked them all this afternoon for you, the traffic bikes, the plain cars and the mobile Police station and the public order van (really, I did as this thread got me thinking if they all had them, they were all in order)

The problem we have at my nick (and I'm sure many others will agree) is that cars are at a premium. I work at a station that has 5 response vehicles for my shift to use. These are mainly panda's and small vans with a cage cell in the back. There are 5 call signs per shift (so we need all 5 cars) so if there's one off the road it messes things up no end. I always check my car before I go out (if we dont get an immediate as soon as we're on duty) as we have to, tyres, oil, water, all lights, blues and tones etc (it even gets washed). If there's a problem with the car such as a bulb out we cant change them, they have to go to a workshop to get done so thats a good hour at least. The workshop is open 8 x 4 Mon - Fri so if its outside of those hours then we cant take it. If there's a major fault with the vehicle it gets taken/sent to the workshop and if we're lucky we get a spare old shed car to use. If its a minor fault we cant take the car off the road, I dont agree with it but we have to use them as we rely on them so much. We cant do our job on foot. This is an issue I have raised but sadly the solution costs money that wont be spent on more vehicles to have just incase one's off the road for something. Spare cars come from the workshop if they have one but thats rare, and we can only get one when they're open too.

Sadly we cant take a car off the road for a tax disc, I'll always tell my supervision if there's a fault with a car but they will say take it out. We're not in the position to have a vehicle sat in the car park when we're needed out on the streets etc. I dont agree with that but for things such as tax discs or a bulb out we drive the cars, we cant afford not to.

In an ideal world we'd have spare cars etc and cars that arent 3 years old with 150k miles on the clock and trashed but this is the real world sadly.

The state of the cars annoys the hell out of me, they're badly treated and NEVER get washed by anyone else apart from me it seems. I've lost count of the amount of times I've reported faults with them out of hours and left a note for someone to take them to get fixed only to come back in a few days later and the cars still there with a break light out etc because no one could be ar$ed to take them to get sorted.....someone else will do it is the attitude people have....very annoying.

Its a bind.

[Nedrick]

And can you imagine the Daily Mail headline. POLICE FAIL TO RESPOND TO 15 YEAR OLD GIRL BEING RAPED BECAUSE NO TAX IN WINDOW.

It is why as Officers and to more an extent Sergeants have to risk assess.

I will gladly field a complaint about one of my officers being in an untaxed car if someone life gets saved because I have told them to use it anyway, but then that is just me...

[mark69sheer]

This is not a Bib Bash but it is quite comical that police can fail to display , drive without insurance or MOT and not wear seatbelts.

[Battenburg Bob]

mark69sheer said:

This is not a Bib Bash but it is quite comical that police can fail to display , drive without insurance or MOT and not wear seatbelts.

Police vehicles are insured..(self insured for first £10,000), are all MOT'd and every single Officer on my shift wears seatbelts (except when transporting prisoners). An amazingly, they've all got in date tax discs. Hilarious innit!!

Nearly up to seven pages now. (An I'm ashamed that I actually replied to a post in this ridiculous thread)

[vonhosen]

mark69sheer said:

This is not a Bib Bash but it is quite comical that police can fail to display , drive without insurance or MOT and not wear seatbelts.

Where have you ever seen a Police car not complying with insurance requirements under the RTA ?

Have you evidence of them driving without an MOT ?

They have an exemption from wearing seat belts so it's quite possible you could see them doing that, just as a host of other drivers have that exemption too, so what's your beef over them using their exemptions in respect of that one ?

So much for the ' going easy' thread you started this morning.
That lasted a long time

[mark69sheer]

Battenburg Bob said:

mark69sheer said:

This is not a Bib Bash but it is quite comical that police can fail to display , drive without insurance or MOT and not wear seatbelts.

Police vehicles are insured..(self insured for first £10,000), are all MOT'd and every single Officer on my shift wears seatbelts (except when transporting prisoners). An amazingly, they've all got in date tax discs. Hilarious innit!!

Nearly up to seven pages now. (An I'm ashamed that I actually replied to a post in this ridiculous thread)

Who pays after first 10k?

I know you don't have to pay road tax but you do have to display.
As I mentioned I think liveried cars shouldn't have to display as its more than obvious what the car is.

[vonhosen]

mark69sheer said:

Battenburg Bob said:

mark69sheer said:

This is not a Bib Bash but it is quite comical that police can fail to display , drive without insurance or MOT and not wear seatbelts.

Police vehicles are insured..(self insured for first £10,000), are all MOT'd and every single Officer on my shift wears seatbelts (except when transporting prisoners). An amazingly, they've all got in date tax discs. Hilarious innit!!

Nearly up to seven pages now. (An I'm ashamed that I actually replied to a post in this ridiculous thread)

Who pays after first 10k?

What does it matter to you ?
They cover third party risks as required by the RTA, they comply with it.
Have you any evidence of them not, or is it just more baseless hot air from you ?

[Battenburg Bob]

mark69sheer said:

Battenburg Bob said:

mark69sheer said:

This is not a Bib Bash but it is quite comical that police can fail to display , drive without insurance or MOT and not wear seatbelts.

Police vehicles are insured..(self insured for first £10,000), are all MOT'd and every single Officer on my shift wears seatbelts (except when transporting prisoners). An amazingly, they've all got in date tax discs. Hilarious innit!!

Nearly up to seven pages now. (An I'm ashamed that I actually replied to a post in this ridiculous thread)

Who pays after first 10k?

I know you don't have to pay road tax but you do have to display.
As I mentioned I think liveried cars shouldn't have to display as its more than obvious what the car is.

Strangely enough...it's an INSURANCE company!

[Nedrick]

mark69sheer said:

This is not a Bib Bash but it is quite comical that police can fail to display , drive without insurance or MOT and not wear seatbelts.

Yes it is.

[herewego]

Is failure to display an offence only by the RK or also by the driver?

[vonhosen]

Yep the driver commits the offence.

Edited by vonhosen on Sunday 19th October 10:06

[^Slider^]

So are we all saying here that you want robotic enforcement of road traffic legislation here.

Because if you do, we certainly will oblige by robotically enforcing against everyone.

I thought that you all wanted discression and judgement to be used by police officers?

So how is half the posts here raging on about "one rule for them and one for us" "do the BiB for failing to display tax" using discression.

We use it often enough in favour of members of the public, How about we get cut some slack as well by the general public.

A seven page thread about failing to display a tax disk. What has this place come to.

How many of you have been stopped and advised / let off minor RTA offences by BiB?

You cant have it both ways im afraid.

[Greendubber]

^Slider^ said:

So are we all saying here that you want robotic enforcement of road traffic legislation here.

Because if you do, we certainly will oblige by robotically enforcing against everyone.

I thought that you all wanted discression and judgement to be used by police officers?

So how is half the posts here raging on about "one rule for them and one for us" "do the BiB for failing to display tax" using discression.

We use it often enough in favour of members of the public, How about we get cut some slack as well by the general public.

A seven page thread about failing to display a tax disk. What has this place come to.

How many of you have been stopped and advised / let off minor RTA offences by BiB?

You cant have it both ways im afraid.

Yep.

[mark69sheer]

vonhosen said:

mark69sheer said:

Battenburg Bob said:

mark69sheer said:

This is not a Bib Bash but it is quite comical that police can fail to display , drive without insurance or MOT and not wear seatbelts.

Police vehicles are insured..(self insured for first £10,000), are all MOT'd and every single Officer on my shift wears seatbelts (except when transporting prisoners). An amazingly, they've all got in date tax discs. Hilarious innit!!

Nearly up to seven pages now. (An I'm ashamed that I actually replied to a post in this ridiculous thread)

Who pays after first 10k?

What does it matter to you ?
They cover third party risks as required by the RTA, they comply with it.
Have you any evidence of them not, or is it just more baseless hot air from you ?

Von . . I have only mentioned what other Bib have mentioned on this thread.
No the reason I asked about the 10k was because I wondered if I could put 10k into a bank account as a surety and not pay insurance myself.