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Baware if you are driving on UK plates


Bob T
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Like the uninsured driver who wrote off the car of a young lad I worked with. The lad had moved to the area to start afresh after problems at home, started "at the bottom" to begin building a career, was spending most of his limited pay on renting a grotty room, and borrowed all he could afford to buy a car, his only significant possession and pride and joy. But he could only afford 3rd party insurance....

Along comes Mr Uninsured in a "borrowed" car and rams into Pete's (legally parked) car at about 60mph in a 30mph limit (police estimate).

In Court, the judge finds the driver guilty - had a string of similar offences - but decides no good will come of putting him away. Driver claims to have no money so judge makes a tiny award of a pittance a week to be paid to young Pete. When Pete's barrister points out to his lordship that it won't be worth trying to collect (he is sure to default), and it certainly won't enable Pete to get another car (and he still has to pay off the finance on the wrecked one), the judge blames Pete for not taking out fully comprehensive insurance.

So that's one consequence of doing something that might invalidate your insurance. The risk of course to the driver, if they have money, is that they could lose it all as the Court will then make a more worthwhile award, particularly if some poor sod has been maimed or killed.

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There are also I expect a large number of people such as myself who fully intend to be completely legal vehicle wise.  For myself I hope that we will be in France shortly (2-3 months assuming my house purchase goes through without too many hiccups) and I have already requested the CoC's from BMW for my wife's car and from Chrysler UK for my Jeep.  I have already sourced a supplier for continental headlights for both, so I can order them as soon as I get an address for delivery in France.  I don't expect it will take more than 1 month to get the other certificates and CT test.

 

 

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[quote user="Sunday Driver"]

In terms of the original theme of this thread, I think it relates to those people who have sold up in the UK and moved to France, so the issue of domicile/residency raised by ESB introduces a complexity which is actually covered under the regulations, but not necessarily relevant to pimpernel's understanding of the basics.

The bottom line is that if you own a car, then you want to drive it.  People regard this as a basic human right and the law is something which potentially stops you exercising that right. I'd be surprised to learn of anyone who brought their UK car over here, then locked it away after a month because they hadn't yet received their certificate of conformity from the French importer or were still searching for scrap headlamps for the CT test.

There will be people who believe they can continue to drive their pride and joy anywhere they like because they are unaware of the regulations or the risks.  They've driven their cars quite legally in France on holiday without any problem, so why would things be different now?

There will be people who know/have been told about the regulations and would like to comply, but forsee/experience problems.  For them, breaking these obscure/petty laws seems to be a risk worth taking in order to be able to continue using their car, but they may not be aware of the potential consequences.

There will be people who couldn't care less about the regulations and will ignore them anyway.

Not much different to life in the UK.......

 

[/quote]

Well, SD, you are looking at that person, that is, the one whose car sat outside in our drive because the garage took over 3 weeks to get the right headlamps for my car.

I had the Cert of Conformity back in the Uk, couldn't get the lights as we had to move in a hurry, tried to get them from 2 different garages once we got to France but had the inevitable wait.  Indeed, my car was locked up for 6 weeks and I would have given anything to have been able to drive it.

In the end, after the lights were fitted, I had a huge argument with the OH which I only won after pointing out that I couldn't possibly get it to the CT station without ACTUALLY driving it.  In the end it was agreed that I would drive it very slowly and carefully on a quiet week day to the CT place.  Indeed, the car then sat on the drive some more until the insurance documents arrived.

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Tricycle indeed!  I'll have you know that I have ridden a bicycle from Istanbul to Ephesus for charity.  Won't tell you how terrified I was going down some of those long, steep hills in Turkey where the road surface is, shall we say, pitted and if you fall ar** over t*ts, it's a long way to the nearest hospital.
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Now then Sweetie 17, here is a problem: as Brits but resident in France, should our bikes have been registered with Turkish plates for the journey or is it ok that they had French ones. And given the time we took, would it be possible to reregister them in UK and France without first transitting through the country of our birth. How about the Isle of Man?
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I had a cat with 3 legs (Ben, car accident @ 3 yrs, lived to 17-ish) - he was very, very good at begging ("oh but, just look at poor wee me with only 3 legs, how can I fend for myself" he'd yell at us every day from his post by the fridge) - but, isn't this the wrong thread for this . . . ?

BTW, he was also very, very good at mousing [:-))] [8-|]

 

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Hi, if anyone is still interested in the original topic. I contacted someone I know who lives in France and has run a UK plated 7.5 tonne horsebox for a number of years. They said they were a little concerned about the legalities of having it French registered when they first arrived so to try and get around any problems and expense this is what they have done.

The transferred the registration to a parent who resides in the UK. It is taxed and plated and their UK insurers have been told that the vehicle spends the majority of it's time in France. They contacted VOSA who gave them a letter of exemption for the tachograph which they have translated into French.They also said that in conversation with the VOSA official they were told that the UK authorities would not be unduly concerned if the vehicle wasn't taxed when it wasn't on UK roads.However they do keep it taxed as the vehicle regularly goes back to the UK. In fact during the summer months it spends the greater part of its time in the UK. I pointed out to them that this was probably still illegal so they asked me to enquire from the legal experts on this forum which bit is not legal. They said they have occasionally been stopped for routine checks by the gendarmes who have inspected their paperwork and they said there has never been a problem. They themselves thought there may be a problem but as they have been running like this for a time with no problem they have not bothered looking in to the legalities.

Over to the experts. As I have now told them they are illegal ,back me up.

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[quote user="pimpernel"]They transferred the registration to a parent who resides in the UK. It is taxed and plated and their UK insurers have been told that the vehicle spends the majority of its time in France. [/quote]

It seems unlikely that you can get round the problem of legal registration and insurance in France simply by transferring the registration to someone who lives somewhere else.  Apparently in this case the principal user is not the same as the registered owner, and lives in a different country: does the insurer know this?

So far as the gendarmes are concerned: the fact that they accept the papers doesn't mean much, because they cannot possibly know all the circumstances.  This has been said before, but it evidently needs to be repeated, since many people seem to believe that if the documents pass a police inspection, then "there's no problem".  If your friends wish to test this, they could do so the next time their papers are inspected, by saying: "By the way, Monsieur, you should be aware that this vehicle spends most of its time in France and its principal user is resident here."

The connection between insurance and legality has been discussed ad nauseam on this forum and I have nothing new to say about it, but I would sum it up like this: If the law requires your friends to have valid insurance, and they do not have valid insurance, then they are driving illegally. 

They may be able to conceal this from the police in routine inspections, but if there is a serious accident claim against them they will not be able to conceal it from an insurance investigator - in which case of course the police will find out also.  I always come back to the same question: can it possibly be worth the risk?

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[quote user="pimpernel"]

Hi, if anyone is still interested in the original topic. I contacted someone I know who lives in France and has run a UK plated 7.5 tonne horsebox for a number of years. They said they were a little concerned about the legalities of having it French registered when they first arrived so to try and get around any problems and expense this is what they have done.

The transferred the registration to a parent who resides in the UK. It is taxed and plated and their UK insurers have been told that the vehicle spends the majority of it's time in France. They contacted VOSA who gave them a letter of exemption for the tachograph which they have translated into French.They also said that in conversation with the VOSA official they were told that the UK authorities would not be unduly concerned if the vehicle wasn't taxed when it wasn't on UK roads.However they do keep it taxed as the vehicle regularly goes back to the UK. In fact during the summer months it spends the greater part of its time in the UK. I pointed out to them that this was probably still illegal so they asked me to enquire from the legal experts on this forum which bit is not legal. They said they have occasionally been stopped for routine checks by the gendarmes who have inspected their paperwork and they said there has never been a problem. They themselves thought there may be a problem but as they have been running like this for a time with no problem they have not bothered looking in to the legalities.

Over to the experts. As I have now told them they are illegal ,back me up.

[/quote]

The horsebox belongs to a resident of a foreign country and from what you say, there is no doubt that it is properly registered, taxed and insured in that foreign country.  However, as mentioned previously, to comply with the regulations designed to prevent tax avoidance, one may not drive a foreign registered vehicle in one's own country of residence without acquitting the local taxes and re-registering it.

Just reverse the situation and imagine it was the parents who wanted to use their son's French registered horsebox in the UK.  By doing so, they would avoid having to pay UK road tax - that's why these regulations were introduced.

There is an exemption which allows your friend to drive this foreign horsebox in France - that is, if the vehicle is owned by a family member who has brought it over here on a visit (the six month rule) and that family member is present in the vehicle at the time. The scenario you describe does not appear to fulfil the requirements for that exemption.

The simplest solution is the legal one - register the horsebox in France.

 

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Thanks SundayDriver I think the first paragragh covers it.   I would just like to state that these people are not exactly friends of mine. I just know them. When I spoke to them about the box ,they were a bit defensive so I think they realised it probably wasn't legal.

Just to further this slightly for clarity's sake. Is it illegal for a French resident to drive an English registered car. ie Someone comes to visit and while out on day trips etc the driving is shared

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[quote user="pimpernel"]

They also said that in conversation with the VOSA official they were told that the UK authorities would not be unduly concerned if the vehicle wasn't taxed when it wasn't on UK roads.However they do keep it taxed as the vehicle regularly goes back to the UK.

[/quote]

One thing I spotted is the above which is a contradiction in terms in as much as they know that the statement by VOSA is not correct.

The reason for my comment is that firstly the VOSA information is wrong because it does not matter where in  the world a UK registered car/lorry or whatever is being driven the fact that it is on UK plates means it must be UK legal which includes having a valid tax disk. Tell them to phone Swansea (DVLA, I put the number in this thread) if they don't believe me (and others).

The reason, as you have said, that they have a current tax disk is because as soon as they enter the UK they would be stopped and immediately be asked to pay any outstanding road tax, the statutory fine and get a tax disk before the vehicle is released to drive on UK roads (that's what the camera at knee level  is for (amongs other things) when you get of the ferry, it checks against the DVLA computer when it spots a UK plate that it is insured, has a current MOT and is taxed and has no outstanding fine or penalties against it). The only dispensation they may get is if the vehicle requires a MOT and they have it pre booked but they must go directly there. They know this which is why they tax it.

Apart from that it's illegal for the reasons others and in particular SD have stated. I would pay attention to what SD says because to the best of my knowledge he has not been wrong in the past.

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