Court summons - Driving without insurance

[Rav]

Hi All, Need your help.

Mate of mine has a court summons for driving without insurance. He is 18 years old and had good reason for driving without insurance.

What should he do? How to go about getting a solicitor to represent him?

What could the likely out comes be?

Cheers

[MK4 Slowride]

Sorry, how can you have a good reason for driving without insurance?

iirc, that'll be 6 points on his licence, whether he's got one or not.

[UpTheIron]

MK4 Slowride said:

Sorry, how can you have a good reason for driving without insurance?

iirc, that'll be 6 points on his licence, whether he's got one or not.

I can think of lots of good reasons, but not sure that will help. What's his reason?

Get a solicitor.

[RichBurley]

MK4 Slowride said:

Sorry, how can you have a good reason for driving without insurance?

iirc, that'll be 6 points on his licence, whether he's got one or not.

He drove his mum to the hospital A&E in her car?

I don't know, I just made that up, but there *might* be a good reason for driving without insurance.

[MK4 Slowride]

Isn't that what an ambulance is for? It'd be nice to know what the genuine reason is.

[7db]

There are very few reasons which will see him not getting 6 points.

His insurance will be quite expensive in future.

[s2art]

I thought the situation had to be life threatening. Possibly OK if the safety of the Realm is involved.

[MK4 Slowride]

s2art said:

I thought the situation had to be life threatening. Possibly OK if the safety of the Realm is involved.

It'd be interesting to know what the rule is on that. Yes, life threatening but 'what if' uninsured/unlicenced driver caused another accidentcollision creating more injury?

[Rav]

The driver had a epaleptic fit. My freind drove his car back home, but en-route were stopped by the old bill.

[Stefluc]

Rav,
If your friend suffers from epilepsy he will undoubtedly have a restricted licence,yeah,this means that he has been assessed medically to be fit to drive based on the fact that if he does have a fit whilst driving he would hopefully know when it is going to occurr therefore be able to pull over to the side of the road when it does happen.

Then he will be able to recover with what ever medication he has to take to overcome the attack and should be able to continue to drive once he feels fit.

Now,if I were the officer who was dealing with the offence of no Insurance and this is the excuse that I was presented with then I would be asking the above questions , if this is the case then I would be sending your friend for a further medical, and in between time asking the DVLA to revoke his licence until such times as it can be investigated by the relevant authorities, and if your friend has never suffered from epilepsy before then it would apply only from the begining.

So, if your mate is truly epileptic then I would possibly look to assist but if I found out that it was a little porky just to get off with a No Insurance then I would / could be considering either Obstruction or PTCOJ depends as to what stage the prosecution was at.
Stefluc

[MK4 Slowride]

Rav said:

The driver had a epaleptic fit. My freind drove his car back home, but en-route were stopped by the old bill.

Hmm, did he really have to drive it home can't it have been left near the hospital?

[7db]

I think he's looking at 6 points.

He didn't *need* to drive the car. Even if rushing epileptic friend to hospital the question would be whether he genuinely believed that an ambulance couldn't have got there "in time", and whether the hospital was the nearest place that the ambulance could have got to. If just dropping it back, then natural question is why couldn't someone else drop the car back? If in danger, he could drive it to the nearest place of safety (ie the hard shoulder if on the motorway). Sounds like he went further than that.

Unlucky to get caught. Why was he?

Epileptic friend is looking at 12 months without driving if that's his first fit. Good luck to him - similar thing happened to a fried of mine recently.

[Vesuvius 996]

Rav said:

The driver had a epaleptic fit. My freind drove his car back home, but en-route were stopped by the old bill.

LMFAO.

And that's supposed to be a good reason.

B0llocks mate.

6 points and a big fine.

[s2art]

Rav said:

The driver had a epaleptic fit. My freind drove his car back home, but en-route were stopped by the old bill.

If he had driven the guy straight to hospital, and was convinced it was a medical emergency (that is it was reasonable for a lay person to think so) then he would get away with it. Driving him home? I reckon not.

[_dobbo_]

Are you even allowed to drive if you have epilepsy? I recollect a friend at school wasn't allowed to drive for this very reason.

[Dwight VanDriver]

The only exception clause under Road Traffic Act 1988 S 143 is:

(3) A person charged with using a motor vehicle in contravention of this section shall not be convicted if he proves—
(a) that the vehicle did not belong to him and was not in his possession under a contract of hiring or of loan,
(b) that he was using the vehicle in the course of his employment, and
(c) that he neither knew nor had reason to believe that there was not in force in relation to the vehicle such a policy of insurance or security as is mentioned in subsection (1) above.

Medical emergencies are not covered. However this may be brought up in mitigation with a view to trying to get a reduction of fine/points and up to the Mags.

dvd

[TTwiggy]

Vesuvius 996 said:

Rav said:

The driver had a epaleptic fit. My freind drove his car back home, but en-route were stopped by the old bill.

LMFAO.

And that's supposed to be a good reason.

B0llocks mate.

6 points and a big fine.

let's apply some benefit of the doubt eh? What if they were down a country lane, miles from anywhere. Friend says 'I don't feel right to drive, can you get the car home?' should he have said 'I don't care how unwell you feel, we're leaving it here with the hazrds on and walking' (yes I know the legal answer, I'm just saying it's not always easy to leave a friend in the lurch, particularly when you're 18)...

[s2art]

This guy should check if his friends insurance actually does cover him for this. Many insurance companies do provide cover for another driver if the insured suffers a medical emergency. (I know mine does, my dads does, my brothers does etc.). I think this is fairly normal.

[JustinP1]

TTwiggy said:

Vesuvius 996 said:

Rav said:

The driver had a epaleptic fit. My freind drove his car back home, but en-route were stopped by the old bill.

LMFAO.

And that's supposed to be a good reason.

B0llocks mate.

6 points and a big fine.

let's apply some benefit of the doubt eh? What if they were down a country lane, miles from anywhere. Friend says 'I don't feel right to drive, can you get the car home?' should he have said 'I don't care how unwell you feel, we're leaving it here with the hazrds on and walking' (yes I know the legal answer, I'm just saying it's not always easy to leave a friend in the lurch, particularly when you're 18)...

Quite correct, but you also do it with the full knowledge of the consequences and take the calculated risk.

So if you get the book thrown at you, you can only expect it!

[TTwiggy]

JustinP1 said:

TTwiggy said:

Vesuvius 996 said:

Rav said:

The driver had a epaleptic fit. My freind drove his car back home, but en-route were stopped by the old bill.

LMFAO.

And that's supposed to be a good reason.

B0llocks mate.

6 points and a big fine.

let's apply some benefit of the doubt eh? What if they were down a country lane, miles from anywhere. Friend says 'I don't feel right to drive, can you get the car home?' should he have said 'I don't care how unwell you feel, we're leaving it here with the hazrds on and walking' (yes I know the legal answer, I'm just saying it's not always easy to leave a friend in the lurch, particularly when you're 18)...

Quite correct, but you also do it with the full knowledge of the consequences and take the calculated risk.

So if you get the book thrown at you, you can only expect it!

Unless you travel at 32mph above the speed limit, hire a £10k a day lawyer, and get off...