Caught with no insurance after midnight expiry
Discussion
Asking for a friends 18 year old son (Yes, really).
He was letting the insurance lapse on his car as he is going away to Uni and will not be taking the car. He spoke to his insurers a week or so prior, and informed them he would not be renewing, and they said "No problem, just be aware that your insurance runs out on Saturday".
After the insurance lapsed, he was just going to park the car up on his parents property, SORN it, and then let his dad decide if it was to be kept/sold etc.
He goes to work Friday night, usually finishes around 11pm and lives a 15 minute drive away from his work. His work kept him later to help clean up, and by the time he sets off home in his car it is midnight. He drives for a couple of minutes and then begins to get followed by a police van, who pull him over on his way out of town at about 12:05 and tell him he has no insurance on his car.
They sit him in the back of the van, and tell him they understand the circumstances surrounding the matter, and inform him that if he buys insurance right then and there using his phone they will let him carry on his journey home. So after a brief google, he buys 24 hour insurance for £45, and the police accept this and let him set off home again complete with a stern telling off.
14 days later, an NIP drops though the letterbox saying they intend to prosecute him for driving with no insurance via IN10 code.
He is devastated by this as it will mean that he loses his driving license if he receives 6 points, he will have to re-take a test, and worse, he will likely find it very difficult and prohibitively expensive to obtain insurance again with a 'IN10' offence on his licence.
I would like to make clear:
He knows it is his fault for not understanding or not asking his insurers to clarify the "Your insurance runs out Saturday" statement.
He acknowledges it is his mistake and no one else's.
He acknowledges that he did commit the offence.
Now that we have that out of the way, he wants to know if there is any point in requesting court and pleading his case? Not so he can dispute the offence, but so that he can explain the circumstances and plead for some kind of leniency in his punishment.
Is there any form of discretion regarding the punishment of IN10 offences?
The worst part about all this I suppose is that he's a really good, polite, well behaved kid who only really uses his car to go to work and to sports training, and he's been really knocked for six by this and feels like a criminal, and is now worrying about what will happen when he needs to drive again.
Thanks in advance.
He was letting the insurance lapse on his car as he is going away to Uni and will not be taking the car. He spoke to his insurers a week or so prior, and informed them he would not be renewing, and they said "No problem, just be aware that your insurance runs out on Saturday".
After the insurance lapsed, he was just going to park the car up on his parents property, SORN it, and then let his dad decide if it was to be kept/sold etc.
He goes to work Friday night, usually finishes around 11pm and lives a 15 minute drive away from his work. His work kept him later to help clean up, and by the time he sets off home in his car it is midnight. He drives for a couple of minutes and then begins to get followed by a police van, who pull him over on his way out of town at about 12:05 and tell him he has no insurance on his car.
They sit him in the back of the van, and tell him they understand the circumstances surrounding the matter, and inform him that if he buys insurance right then and there using his phone they will let him carry on his journey home. So after a brief google, he buys 24 hour insurance for £45, and the police accept this and let him set off home again complete with a stern telling off.
14 days later, an NIP drops though the letterbox saying they intend to prosecute him for driving with no insurance via IN10 code.
He is devastated by this as it will mean that he loses his driving license if he receives 6 points, he will have to re-take a test, and worse, he will likely find it very difficult and prohibitively expensive to obtain insurance again with a 'IN10' offence on his licence.
I would like to make clear:
He knows it is his fault for not understanding or not asking his insurers to clarify the "Your insurance runs out Saturday" statement.
He acknowledges it is his mistake and no one else's.
He acknowledges that he did commit the offence.
Now that we have that out of the way, he wants to know if there is any point in requesting court and pleading his case? Not so he can dispute the offence, but so that he can explain the circumstances and plead for some kind of leniency in his punishment.
Is there any form of discretion regarding the punishment of IN10 offences?
The worst part about all this I suppose is that he's a really good, polite, well behaved kid who only really uses his car to go to work and to sports training, and he's been really knocked for six by this and feels like a criminal, and is now worrying about what will happen when he needs to drive again.
Thanks in advance.
Just to clarify:
1) I fully agree with everyone who says “it’s his own fault and he should have known when it expired”.
He knows this, and isn’t disputing that he committed the offence. He acknowledges was his own fault for not knowing, to the minute, when his insurance expired.
He doesn’t intend to fight the offence, merely the punishment, if possible, or if it’s worth a go.
After he told his insurer to let his insurance lapse and had the conversation with them, he assumed it would cover ‘Friday night’ and didn’t realise it meant expiry at 23:59:59, thinking that ‘night’ meant until the next morning because they said “it expires Saturday”, which of course it did.... at midnight.
He’s 18 and this is the first time he’s ever dealt with insurance.
He knows now.
2) He didn’t assume that the officer was definitely letting him off with a warning.
He just wasn’t sure.
Apparently the officer didn’t explicitly say he was getting reported for the offence and it was all very confusing as it was the first time he had ever interacted with the police and he was quite flustered.
The officer told him to get insurance sorted then and there, which he did, then told him off in stern terms and pretty much said “Off you go. Don’t do it again”
He spent 2 weeks thinking about what was actually said during the exchange, and wondering if he was getting some kind of ticket.
That was answered of course, when the NIP arrived.
1) I fully agree with everyone who says “it’s his own fault and he should have known when it expired”.
He knows this, and isn’t disputing that he committed the offence. He acknowledges was his own fault for not knowing, to the minute, when his insurance expired.
He doesn’t intend to fight the offence, merely the punishment, if possible, or if it’s worth a go.
After he told his insurer to let his insurance lapse and had the conversation with them, he assumed it would cover ‘Friday night’ and didn’t realise it meant expiry at 23:59:59, thinking that ‘night’ meant until the next morning because they said “it expires Saturday”, which of course it did.... at midnight.
He’s 18 and this is the first time he’s ever dealt with insurance.
He knows now.
2) He didn’t assume that the officer was definitely letting him off with a warning.
He just wasn’t sure.
Apparently the officer didn’t explicitly say he was getting reported for the offence and it was all very confusing as it was the first time he had ever interacted with the police and he was quite flustered.
The officer told him to get insurance sorted then and there, which he did, then told him off in stern terms and pretty much said “Off you go. Don’t do it again”
He spent 2 weeks thinking about what was actually said during the exchange, and wondering if he was getting some kind of ticket.
That was answered of course, when the NIP arrived.
Algarve said:
Well the kid could have said "I can't leave late tonight as I'll be uninsured at 12" and the boss would have been forced to let him go on time.
Though I'm guessing the OP isn't getting the real story from the kid in the first place. If he's telling the truth then its one of the unluckiest receiving of points I've ever heard of.
I know his dad very well as we work together every day and are friends outside work.Though I'm guessing the OP isn't getting the real story from the kid in the first place. If he's telling the truth then its one of the unluckiest receiving of points I've ever heard of.
He phoned his Dad as he was sat in the police van just after midnight, and asked him to help find temporary insurance so he could drive home.
Also, his dad has seen the insurance documents with, with midnight expiry time, and yes, it all stacks up.
As others more knowledgable than me have said further up the thread, expired insurance policies can vanish from the ANPR database bang on midnight, and it’s actually quite common.
Clearly the police saw a young looking lad driving along in a car after midnight and thought they would have a quick look, ANPR or a manual reg check immediately showed no insurance, and here we are.
IANAL, however unless the lad has a reasonable prospect of success defending the charge in court, isn't he going to be better off financially by sticking with a fixed penalty? I suppose if the court accepted mitigation it might not award 6 points and perhaps, if applicable, this could avoid revocation of the licence?
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