Baware if you are driving on UK plates

[Bob T]

Just spotted this. I am sure that some here won't believe it though.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2007/10/20/mrjon20.xml

[mint]

Within a year, new EU systems will close in on all such people.

Above quote is from your article, Bob.  Hooray!  Fed up with telling people what they are doing is illegal and fed up with arguing with them.

[Frederick]

There is a lot on here who know all about it Bob ....they know what they are doing .... just dont care ....hence the Airport car park crowd  "on display " ...lets just hope we dont hit one of the chancers .....They should take them off the road tomorrow ..nice to know their days are now numbered ..but its not only France .....Spain also have their share.

[Jonzjob]

About time too, if the Damjams are interested?

But mind you it would certainly be an earner BIG TIME for them!!

If I were to be hit by 'one of the chancers' and their insurance walked away I would NOT be a nice person to know!!!!!

We pay our way here and I don't see why clowns should come over to live and not do the same!

[bixy]

I talked to someone recently who told me that she drove a UK registered car in France for several years. When I showed my disapproval she objected that it was insured so what was the problem. I pointed out that the insurance would be invalid. But how would the insurers know that she hadn't just gone over there, she said. My guess is that if it was a very large claim for injury damages they would make it their business to find out. Am I right?

Patrick

[Bob T]

A UK insurance company would take a good look at anything that would give them a chance to pull out of paying a claim. Did your contact also have road tax and MOT? These are easy to check these days, as are addresses and electrol roll entries.

As soon as they see that the accident was in France, they would start looking.

[bixy]

She had neither MOT or tax. I think the length of time she was driving this car in France was something like  five years! I'm feeling particularly righteous about this issue at the moment as I'm going though the process of immatriculating two cars - very expensive and at times difficult.

Patrick

[Iceni]

Why so bixy ? Re-regging our krautmobile cost only the DRIRE fee of 67€ and a CT of 55€ extra. Neither expensive nor difficult.

John

not

[Bob T]

Well there you go bixy, her UK insurance will wriggle out of a claim with no MOT or tax, that is certain. She has an insurance certificate to show the French police if asked, but in the event of a claim she will be very out of pocket, and in the case of a personal injury may lose her house and her freedom. Serves her right, and I hope she gets caught.

[Ron Avery]

Sadly Bob that article is not correct in is far as what really happens.  It is really quite easy to get French insurance for a UK plated car, CT or not, and many cars I have seen,  without CT stickers have stickers from insurance companies like from AXA and Generali, both of whom seem happy to insure UK plated cars for year after year.

A DVLA check on those cars shows that they have been here for more than a year (tax expired 2003 -2005) in all cases. I know people who are into their third year with AXA.  Whether they would pay out in the event of an accident is anybody's guess, and frankly like others I am fed up telling these people of the risks that they run just to save a few bob on headlight conversion!!

[Chancer]

Ron

How were you able to do a DVLA check? That could be scary for some people!

I concur with your doubts as to whether French insurers in these circumstances would pay out or are just selling very profitable policies.

English insurers however, fortunately or sadly according to your position as insured or injured 3rd party, will always pay out on 3rd party claims even where the risk has been non-disclosed or in another European country, it is the policyholders claim that they quite rightly would try to wriggle out of.

[Jonzjob]

I have always been under the impression that for U.K. insurance to be valid, full stop, the car being insured MUST be road legal in the country of registration! If that car has been bought out of the U.K. and has no tax or MOT, where needed, then it is NOT road legal and therefore is NOT covered...

Also what is the situation of a car that's exported from the U.K. and not re-regestered here. The registration will not be valid anywhere surely? So you have a car in limbo. If so then how car you insure a car that is not regestered anywhere???

I have said before that if one of these clowns hits me and the insurance co. walks away then the muck will hit the fan, BIG TIME!

[Bob T]

The implication in the post was that the friend was insured with a UK company, but without road tax or MOT the insurance contract would be void. I would not expect any company to pay out, even for 3rd party losses in this case.

A French company will insure a UK plated car, but they are not the police, they are sales people, and in the event of a claim, I am sure that they would also look at the legalities of the car. Telling lies to a insurance company to obtain a bit of paper is no different than not bothering to get any insurance in the first place, and I am sure that they would see it like that too.

[ESB]

Bit of a mystery how you got the DVLA info but I agree with the ease of getting French insurance on UK plated vehicles. Lots around here. However they do send reminders from time to time to the owners to get the vehicle French registered as it is supposed to be an interim arrangement.

As for the EU system closing in - thats a bit of a laugh really, as the UK can't even get its act together on something as simple as SORN which I believe is widely (and incorrectly) used by many Brits living in France with UK regd vehicles.

Still I don't care really, I have got quite used to being shoulder to shoulder with all these closet crims [:D]

 

 

[mint]

Two people have told me recently that they have French insurance for their UK plated cars and been told by their insurers that they have a year to get French registration.  Do you think that after that they are going to pay attention to me when I tell them they have one month?

Mind you, although they have UK plates, they are not paying UK road tax, having informed DVLA that they have exported their cars.  The cars are under 3 years old, so no MOT and no CT.

Going to sign off this thread now because I will only get madder and madder if I talk about the folks who have been here 3 or 4 years and are STILL driving UK plated cars.  Isn't going to do my blood pressure any good at all.

[Ron Avery]

[quote user="J.R."]

Ron

How were you able to do a DVLA check? [/quote]

Easy, just go to http://www.vehiclelicence.gov.uk/EvlPortalApp/  click on VEHICLE ENQUIRY, enter the car details and it tells you last tax date, whether SORN'd or if exported.

[bixy]

[quote user="Iceni"]

Why so bixy ? Re-regging our krautmobile cost only the DRIRE fee of 67€ and a CT of 55€ extra. Neither expensive nor difficult.

John

not

[/quote]

Being a krautmobile presumably meant no need to change the headlights. Each of ours cost 500 euros for replacement headlights. One also needed 500euros for repairs to pass the CT and being an older car we have no cert de conformite so are having to get the necessary bit of paper from the DRIRE, who are either very stupid or are being deliberately difficult.

Patrick

[mint]

Ron

Just checked the site you quoted.  Bloody marvellous the information provided! Hah, just let the police (of whichever country) call up the details of all those illegal imports!

[woolybanana]

You mean my Triumph Slag is in trouble? But it donna need an MOT if its abroad.

[mint]

Wooly

Do stop all that winding people up nonsense again!  How much of what you tell us about your wretched Triumph is true?

Go and do something CONSTRUCTIVE instead, eh?

[woolybanana]

I honestly dont understand why so many people keep coming back to the topic. The rules are clear, they only have to read. People who enjoy this field have dug deep into the highways and byways of the subject and provided detailed knowledge for all to read. There are plenty of these illegals round here, though fewer than a few years ago I fancy. What one can do about them apart from steer clear and hope is something else. Telling the gendarme to do their jobs is not really an option. Perhaps preparing a warning notice and sticking it under a few windscreens might work. The fear factor.

Meanwhile back to the Slag back axle.

[Chancer]

I tried the reg of my caterham which is sorned and languishing in my garage in the UK but it could not be found, I also tried the only other previous car reg I could remember and that also was unavailable although it may have been scrapped.

Then Wooly I enetered the reg of my old Triumph Stag which I sold 26 years ago and it is still on the register! could it be yours? What colour is yourts?

[Cat]

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[bigears]

hi

I don't understand this type of thread, what is the point of it?  So the situation is that all of us contributors are legally on the road in france and we are getting upset by some chancers who are not.  I must admit when I go to Limoges airport, I'm actually going there today, I look at the uk reg cars for valid tax discs and chuckle to myself when they don't have a current one.  It doesn't upset me, I certainly wouldn't attempt to put the owners straight.  If people want to break the law then thats their business not mine.  If someone asked me for information on the subject I would then offer what I believed to be a legal position.  Has anyone actually suffered because of an accident with an uninsured uk reged car here in france?  My fear is being hit by a french reged car driving dangerously.  Try NZ, you don't even have to have car insurance there. 

[Ron Avery]

Has anyone actually suffered because of an accident with an uninsured uk reged car here in France? 

Yes, one poster on here from the Charente.  His wife was seriously injured and the French insurer did not pay out for her injuries on the grounds that the car was not legally on the road. He no longer posts because of no brainers who disparage concerns about uninsured cars anger him so much.

As you like to encourage ducking and diving and getting away with it, you are obviously not bothered bigears and that is your choice, I hope that remains the case and that you are not affected by an accident involving an uninsured car.  I wonder if you would be so ambivelent if all your neighbours where you live in the UK did not insure their cars?

In France its quite easy to see on French cars who is insured, and the UK plated blank windscreens are quite common in the summer and now at the airports where they are all stored awaiting towing away and scrapping as more and more airports close their parking, Rodez is the next one,  but doesn't it bother you that there are others who think that they are insured but are not?