Please help.......insurance quandry

[Russethouse]

To answer the earlier question, frankly I wouldn't expect the first police involved to make any phone calls on my behalf, even to prove me innocent, I'd expect to be taken to the station, given access to some sort of representation and for that person to organize the call. Maybe thats wrong, let's hope I never have to find out[;-)]

As Opas has said she doesn't wasn't to give all the facts, but on the face of it the chap was stopped, was of no fixed abode and in a car not mentioned on the ferry ticket. That raised suspicions, that part seems OK - after that ...we'll have to wait and see.......

I do think there is a discrepancy between what the police require and the ferry companies will accept  in regard to identifying vehicles and that should be regularized.

 

 

[opas]

[quote user="Russethouse"]

 

To answer the earlier question, frankly I wouldn't expect the first police involved to make any phone calls on my behalf, even to prove me innocent, I'd expect to be taken to the station, given access to some sort of representation and for that person to organize the call. Maybe thats wrong, let's hope I never have to find out[;-)]

As Opas has said she doesn't wasn't to give all the facts, but on the face of it the chap was stopped, was of no fixed abode and in a car not mentioned on the ferry ticket. That raised suspicions, that part seems OK - after that ...we'll have to wait and see.......

I do think there is a discrepancy between what the police require and the ferry companies will accept  in regard to identifying vehicles and that should be regularized.

 

 

[/quote]

Firstly , he was stopped on the motorway. The police do not need an excuse to stop anyone , as it states on the Home Office Website. Also you have 5/7 days to produce documents as in UK it is not yet law that people have to carry their License, Insurance or Mot cert in thier vehicle. So why ask for the Insurance papers on a foreign reg car , in this case French, if you do not know how to interpret them, or use the info available. To me it is common sense

So would you expect to be arrested to get to the police station to make that phone call? You couldn`t drive your car there as you may not be insured, you cannot park your car on the Hard Shoulder as this too is illegal and use the police car as a  as a Taxi, the easiest , quickest and cheapes option all round would be for the police to make a call to satify themselves that you are/are not insured

 

 

Can I also point out here Mr O is NOT  without a fixed abode as you all know we have several  addresses in France, the police were not interested in any of those....they wanted a UK address!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So aparently according to them , not only do you need a UK address to work there you should also buy a new car at Dover and Insurance to go with it!

In this case all  relevant documents were carried,  but the police who stopped Mr O(who has been during his professional life has been in the back of many police cars,and these two were the worst, and can vouch that indeed the police will make a phone call to check something out....) claimed in court that because the documents were in French  ( hello! what did they expect from a French Plated vehicle!) and they did not understand them and that there was an issue as to when the car entered the Country

Enough, you have all made your mind up, I am sure that if it had been an upstanding member of you forum with this problem , there would be an uproar..

This could happen to any of you.

Whilst at the station after the court getting his paperwork for car release the majority of the client were Polish,  this crackdown of foreign cars is called Operation Wolverine.........

 

[BJSLIV]

Wolverine

http://www.gmp.police.uk/mainsite/pages/7dc2c35ae764d435802573d1004dbc88.htm~bg=4

[Patf]

Mrs. O - Probably you and your husband have already decided on a course of action. But in case you haven't, if it was me I would get back to the UK and arrange an appointment with a good lawyer, to find out what are your chances for compensation/damages.

As others have said, no-one here knows the full story, and none of us are lawyers ( if I'm wrong, I apologise.)

[Russethouse]

Policemen are human and make mistakes, and I guess there have been lots of times that quite a few of us have cursed the police for not acting ( I wrote a long post about one such situation this afternoon, then lost it ) I'm sorry that Mr O was caught in this situation and if compensation is due, then he should get it, but on the whole I would rather that mistakes were made being over zealous, than not being zealous enough. (as long as firearms are not involved)

I feel safer that way...

[Tony F Dordogne]

We only have one side of the story, we have no idea what the Police side of what happened is and rather than rush to judgement on the side of Mr Opas, perhaps we should wait for the outcome of the enquiry and see what the independant - i.e. non-involved/biased - investigators have to say?

[PaulT]

[quote user="Jacqui Too "]

Not wanting to be argumentative and I agree that on the facts we have been given Mr O has been badly treated and some kind of redress is needed.

I would just like to add that last month we came to France with our transit van to do some private work on our own house, and as the same as last year I had to go to our insurers (NFU) to get a 'green card' because it is a commercial vehicle and therefor does not have the required wording (green card) printed on the back of the cover note as does our car. I was asked by the insurance company if we intended to work while we were away in France as they could not issue one if we were.

So may be it's the same whether you drive a car or commercial vehicle you may not be entitled to work and drive on a green card! I might ask next time I am in their office what insurance we would need IF we intended to work, just for curiosity. 

[/quote]

Jackie I think you are confusing commercial work, i.e. carrying out work for Joe Bloggs for payment and carrying out totally non-commercial work, i.e. on your own home.

You may have a commercial vehicle but surely travelling to and from your own home for whatever purpose is 'social and pleasure'.

To extend that whenever anyone drives from their UK home to their French one in a car and they will do some work on it then they require commercial insurance for their car.

The answer to the insurance mans question was 'no'.

Paul

[JMB]

[quote user="Russethouse"]

Policemen are human and make mistakes, and I guess there have been lots of times that quite a few of us have cursed the police for not acting ( I wrote a long post about one such situation this afternoon, then lost it ) I'm sorry that Mr O was caught in this situation and if compensation is due, then he should get it, but on the whole I would rather that mistakes were made being over zealous, than not being zealous enough. (as long as firearms are not involved)

I feel safer that way...

[/quote]

It's a good job firearms were not involved. GMP don't do firearms very well.

[Will]

"Policemen are human and make mistakes..."

We're human too, and if we make a mistake on the road such as travelling slightly too fast past a speed camera we get fined and have to accept the consequences. So the police should also have to accept the consequences of their mistakes. If this was an action under Wolverine, it explains a lot. Just because a large number of Eastern Europeans may be flouting vehicle and other laws, it does not mean that any foreign vehicle is automatically illegal. In this case, the police were clearly in the wrong and should be made to accept this. Or do we want a virtually unaccountable national military police force, like the French?

 

[Pierre ZFP]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[cooperlola]

It strikes me that as the magistrate/judge decided there was no case to answer, then an independent body has already decided that the police were wrong.  Thus it seems to me that Mr O should not have had to pay impound costs for his vehicle, and that there should have been automatic compensation for the time he was wrongfully imprisoned.  In his place I'd be bloomin' livid.  I thought the principal was that it was better to let 10 guilty men go free than for one innocent one to be wrongly punished.  It looks like it's the other way around these days.

 

[Russethouse]

A couple of years ago I complained, possibly here, that a driver who was involved in a hit and run incident, badly injuring my god daughter was not pursued enough, the car owner was traced but merely said she had lent the car to someone and couldn't remember who (the driver was male) and the police let it go - unbelievable - the outcome was several years of stress and dealing with the MIB to get compensation.

In that instance, my opinion was that the police didn't do enough - I can hardly turn round and now say they are doing too much, something triggered suspicion and if a police officer is suspicious I expect them to act. Don't you ?

I am not saying that Mr O should not have his costs repaid, get compensation etc, of course he should, isn't that part of the system just as much as anything else ? But when we have thousands of uninsured and tax dodging motorists, drug smuggling and terrorist threats in addition, what do you expect the policeman to do? Just let a suspect go on their way ? Yes, the phone call could have been made, but I doubt if it's the job of the traffic police to do that.

If you want to live in a safe society there is a trade off, rightly or wrongly. If Mr O had been guilty of some offence, and had been let to go on his way then been involved in a fatal accident a few miles down the road, we'd all be saying how lax the police were. We can't have it both ways.

[Jacqui Too]

[quote user="P2"][quote user="Jacqui Too "]

Not wanting to be argumentative and I agree that on the facts we have been given Mr O has been badly treated and some kind of redress is needed.

I would just like to add that last month we came to France with our transit van to do some private work on our own house, and as the same as last year I had to go to our insurers (NFU) to get a 'green card' because it is a commercial vehicle and therefor does not have the required wording (green card) printed on the back of the cover note as does our car. I was asked by the insurance company if we intended to work while we were away in France as they could not issue one if we were.

So may be it's the same whether you drive a car or commercial vehicle you may not be entitled to work and drive on a green card! I might ask next time I am in their office what insurance we would need IF we intended to work, just for curiosity. 

[/quote]

Jackie I think you are confusing commercial work, i.e. carrying out work for Joe Bloggs for payment and carrying out totally non-commercial work, i.e. on your own home.

You may have a commercial vehicle but surely travelling to and from your own home for whatever purpose is 'social and pleasure'.

To extend that whenever anyone drives from their UK home to their French one in a car and they will do some work on it then they require commercial insurance for their car.

The answer to the insurance mans question was 'no'.

Paul[/quote]

I think that you have miss understood my post[:)]

We did say " 'No', we are only going on a personal trip" and we did get our green card. My point was that had we been going to 'work for gain' there would/may have been a different response from our insurers and it's that response I was curious about. 

[opas]

[quote user="JMB"][quote user="Russethouse"]

Policemen are human and make mistakes, and I guess there have been lots of times that quite a few of us have cursed the police for not acting ( I wrote a long post about one such situation this afternoon, then lost it ) I'm sorry that Mr O was caught in this situation and if compensation is due, then he should get it, but on the whole I would rather that mistakes were made being over zealous, than not being zealous enough. (as long as firearms are not involved)

I feel safer that way...

[/quote]

It's a good job firearms were not involved. GMP don't do firearms very well.

[/quote]

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[PaulT]

[quote user="Jacqui Too "][quote user="P2"][quote user="Jacqui Too "]

Not wanting to be argumentative and I agree that on the facts we have been given Mr O has been badly treated and some kind of redress is needed.

I would just like to add that last month we came to France with our transit van to do some private work on our own house, and as the same as last year I had to go to our insurers (NFU) to get a 'green card' because it is a commercial vehicle and therefor does not have the required wording (green card) printed on the back of the cover note as does our car. I was asked by the insurance company if we intended to work while we were away in France as they could not issue one if we were.

So may be it's the same whether you drive a car or commercial vehicle you may not be entitled to work and drive on a green card! I might ask next time I am in their office what insurance we would need IF we intended to work, just for curiosity. 

[/quote]

Jackie I think you are confusing commercial work, i.e. carrying out work for Joe Bloggs for payment and carrying out totally non-commercial work, i.e. on your own home.

You may have a commercial vehicle but surely travelling to and from your own home for whatever purpose is 'social and pleasure'.

To extend that whenever anyone drives from their UK home to their French one in a car and they will do some work on it then they require commercial insurance for their car.

The answer to the insurance mans question was 'no'.

Paul[/quote]

I think that you have miss understood my post[:)]

We did say " 'No', we are only going on a personal trip" and we did get our green card. My point was that had we been going to 'work for gain' there would/may have been a different response from our insurers and it's that response I was curious about. 

[/quote]

Jackie sorry if I misread your post but I think there is a difference here......

You have a van that I presume you use as part of your business. Mr O was driving a car to get to and from his business. A World of difference.

Paul

[Catalpa]

[quote user="Russethouse"]

A couple of years ago I complained, possibly here, that a driver who was involved in a hit and run incident, badly injuring my god daughter was not pursued enough, the car owner was traced but merely said she had lent the car to someone and couldn't remember who (the driver was male) and the police let it go - unbelievable - the outcome was several years of stress and dealing with the MIB to get compensation.

In that instance, my opinion was that the police didn't do enough - I can hardly turn round and now say they are doing too much, something triggered suspicion and if a police officer is suspicious I expect them to act. Don't you ?

[/quote]

Yes but with judgement. And it does seem that police judgement was lacking here. It appears that someone in Mr O's situation was an easy target because of the unfortunate - but completely legal - set of circumstances described. For the police to have refused to deal with the situation leading to 3 days imprisonment was not a good or effective use of police time and budgets especially if one phone call was all that was needed to cast doubt on the validity of the "offence".

I want police (in any country) to be motivated to ensure they are targetting the right people. I don't agree with persisting with something that can be quickly dismissed or resolved just because they "must be seen to be doing something." Any form of police action costs money - to have wasted it on this situation is ridiculous. Resources should be directed at events such as you describe, RH, not at pursuing something that won't hold up in court and that  possiblity could have been established by the police very quickly.

[Benjamin]

Several years ago Staffordshire Police would periodically have a day on the M6 motorway pulling foreign registered lorries.

I can just imagine the conversation.

" 'ere. This one's got insurance in Polish of somefing foreign"

" Well lock 'im or for a few days. That'll learn him"

These guys were traffic professionals, not some plods just out of training. Human error doesn't come into it; they were doing a job for which they need to be re-trained or put on other duties.

[Phil & Pat]

Given the failure of Brittany Ferries to log vehicle numbers on their France-UK travel documentation, I thought it might be a good idea to ask DVLA what to do at the time of being stopped to provide proof of UK entry date.  The rather less than helpful reply came back

"If you were stopped by the police, you would need to discuss the matter with

the police as to what documentation they would require in order to prove how

long the vehicle had been in the United Kingdom."

I rather think that avenue of approach is a waste of time.

Any ideas?

Ask the BF check-in operator to log the registration number on the ticket manually?

Ask the Immigration Officer at Portsmouth for a date stamp on arrival?

Keep a dated till receipt from the cafe at Ouistreham? [:)]

Just use a different ferry company?

EDIT

Turns out to be easy.  PM me if you are interested.

[opas]

[quote user="opas"]

The OUTCAST is free..........no case to answer. He has been told he has to produce a copy of his travel document , which he didn`t have because for some reason Our computer chose not to download the info so he just wrote his confirmation number down. so I shall contact norfolkline to see if they will fax a duplicate through to the relevent department. And an english translation of his green card so I am off to see the chocolate fireguard at Groupama in a mo.

 

Big thankyou to all who supported me and my family through this , and a big Raspberry to the not so nice people, you each know which category you fall into!

 

 

[/quote]

 

Update: We have just had a phone call from the solicitor. We sent all documents requested by the courts but the arresting officer had a problem with these, and Outie was due to appear in court of Friday( we had not booked a flight for hi as we were so convinced it would be all cleared up by then!)   After us making a few phone calls to the solicitor , CPS and the IPCC it appears he has had a change of mind. The case has now officially been dropped.

 

 

[Catalpa]

[quote user="opas"]

We sent all documents requested by the courts but the arresting officer had a problem with these... <snip> The case has now officially been dropped.

[/quote]

Good. [8-|] But did they say what they didn't like about the documents? Other than presumably they were in French!

[opas]

No.

We will receive a letter, but the solicitor said he had received a standard letter saying there was insufficient evidence!  

Once that letter is in our hands the IPCC will take over their investigation, which will be interesting as our evidence is sufficient .

[Owens88]

Warning note for the future though

 

http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/story/?nID=47900

 

Cheers

 

John

[AnOther]

Having nearly lost my son to a foreign lorry driver in a classic 'blind spot' motorway incident a few years ago and personally witnessed two similar accidents it's about time too.

 

[Nick Trollope]

Small aside;

John's link to fleetnews says that 17% of crashes in the UK are caused by Poles...

Does this mean that the number of Polish drivers in the UK has reached such a level that this statistic is true (work it out!)?

Or does this (once again) prove that there are "lies, damn lies and statistics"?

[Russethouse]

Could they mean those that come under the auspices of VOSA ?

Although I have to say we have thriving Polish community here abouts, in my normal routine I meet lots: food shopping, at several restaurants, working at the hotel, at the gym etc etc....and very charming they are too.

One was complaining about the exchange rate just the other day - sounded very familiar........[;-)]