Police out in force

[Nefarious]

Edit to add: isn't having your car towed assuming you're guilty from the outset? What ever happened to issuing a producer?

Because if you don't have valid insurance you shouldn't be driving at all.

And why would you have to wait for the insurer? Surely the policyholder should have the relevant documentation to prove they have business cover?

I don't drive around with docs in the car, and I'm guessing that, now most policies are issued electronically, neither do most people. In the current situation, that means the car gets towed to the pound, and you have to go home, print out the fully policy document, drive it to a police station to get a release chit, then take a random stab in the dark as to when somebody will be manning the release desk at the pound (repeat until successful).
In my friends case, the policy had only been renewed just over a week previously, and new documentation hadn't arrived yet. Even though it was exactly the same as the previous year's wording, at that moment, he could produce evidence from the insurer that he was covered.

As a slightly amusing aside, the final email from the insurer was a proper slap down of the cops. Iirc the final line read something like " for absolute clarity, Mr. X is insured to drive whatever vehicle he likes, for whatever purpose he likes. Including hovercraft."

[Swervin_Mervin]

Fair enough. I wasn't suggesting that anyone carry around their docs - more that access to them could be fairly quick without needing to wait for the insurer. I'd say that now I get them electronically, I'm far more likely to be able to produce the evidence at the side of the road by bringing it up on my phone than I ever was.

I guess, however, that if the police are really looking to be twats about matters then you'd probably still have to wait until the insurers are contactable.

[Orange Cola]

Edit to add: isn't having your car towed assuming you're guilty from the outset? What ever happened to issuing a producer?

Because if you don't have valid insurance you shouldn't be driving at all.

And why would you have to wait for the insurer? Surely the policyholder should have the relevant documentation to prove they have business cover?

The car wasn't being driven with no insurance, and much like the old days where there was document ambiguity confirming the status of a car e.g. databases yet to be updated or something like this specific detail not being available on the database at the time. Then it's down to the driver to produce the documentation at their local police station proving they had the necessary paperwork/cover at the time of the alleged offence, if not they get done for breaking the law.

Towing someones car over a detail such as this, and an interpretation of the officer as to whether they should have motor trade cover based on some items found in the car makes towing seem unnecessarily heavy handed when there's already the producer process in place.

Edit: Nefs reply confirms the insurance had just changed over too, definitely OTT from the police.

[Mito Man]

Seen a few Cameravans out today but they were all in small villages in 30 zones so fair enough. Also had some cunt in the opposite direction do a very poorly misjudged late overtake on a lorry which I had slam the breaks on for
Hopefully he continued and got picked up by the van!

[unzippy]

The insurance one is particularly sneaky, as the trick appears to be "What is the purpose of your journey?" - "Work" - "In that case we'll tow your car on the assumption that you only have social, domestic and pleasure insurance, unless you can prove otherwise". And of course, half the insurance companies aren't there to provide that confirmation.

The Met have a "specialist" task force for insurance, it's shooting fish in a barrel. Especially at the weekend when people nip in to the office for something.

The default answer should always be "I'm out to get a pint of milk"

[Nefarious]

The insurance one is particularly sneaky, as the trick appears to be "What is the purpose of your journey?" - "Work" - "In that case we'll tow your car on the assumption that you only have social, domestic and pleasure insurance, unless you can prove otherwise". And of course, half the insurance companies aren't there to provide that confirmation.

The Met have a "specialist" task force for insurance, it's shooting fish in a barrel. Especially at the weekend when people nip in to the office for something.

The default answer should always be "I'm out to get a pint of milk"

A couple of years ago I was on my way back from collecting the race engine from it's annual rebuild, and got tugged on the motorway at just over a ton (in the Clio!). Empty motorway, unmarked car, been with me for ages, so there was no real argument. But once he saw the engine in the back the conversation turned very bizarre. For about 5 minutes, he kept saying things like "there must be a lot of money in racing" and "do you get a lot of sponsors?" He even picked up on the "Bold engines" sticker on the block and said "they must pay you to run that". I didn't twig at the time where the questioning was supposed to be going, but fortunately said the right things. Never heard another dicky bird about the speeding, and once the penny dropped about the questions, I thought - "you sneaky bastard"