DEATH, TAX AND INSURANCE

Car for sale, the joys of getting temporary insurance.

There are moves afoot to force all car owners to have permanent car insurance for their vehicles, even though they may not be in use and off the road. Under the new law which is currently being debated anyone who owns a vehicle will be committing an offence if their car is uninsured and will receive warning letters and fines if they fail to comply, rather like the Road Fund Licence which all cars have to have by law.

The thinking behind this is to stop the high number of uninsured drivers currently on our roads who create mayhem for everyone else. Many of these uninsured drivers cause accidents and often injury leaving their victims to pick up the costs and the burden of their folly. From what little I understand of this new law anyone taking a car off the road and out of use will have to register some sort of SWORN document in the same way as we now have to with the DVLC when a car is not taxed. Any uninsured vehicle, just like untaxed vehicles, could be seized and crushed if the owner fails to comply.

OK, all sounds fine and dandy so far, but then there are the consequences of such measures, one of which has personally come home to me due to being in the process of buying another car and selling my old Rover myself.

The first thing to note, like any laws made to sort out the unlawful minority, the majority are made to suffer. It reminds me of my school days when one kid got up to some sort of mischief and not knowing who the culprit is; the teacher would punish the whole class to get at that one – which is grossly unfair.

Those lacking in the ways of any kind of legality will not take the slightest bit of notice of such a law, their vehicles will be unregistered too and the authorities will not have a clue as to who they are or where their vehicle is, unless caught red handed behind the wheel, which with all the cut backs and the reliance on the inappropriately name ‘safety cameras’, there will be few actual police to catch the blighters, added to which the police will be too busy arresting people on behalf of the EU under its European Arrest Warrants also others for defending themselves against criminals our for so called ‘hate crimes’ by cracking non-politically correct jokes.

So, what happens to the average person, who like me, wants to update their car but the trade in offer from the car dealer is so bad you decide to sell your old car yourself? You get hit hard in the wallet by the insurance companies is the answer.

Last year when I purchased my Rover from my next door neighbour, who had owned the car from new, I insured it and told the insurance company to leave the current insurance on my old car so I could continue to use it – no problem and about a month later I sold the car after someone saw my car for sale notice stuck in the window of the car. This time there is nothing but complications.

No problem calling my insurers and giving the details of my new vehicle, but when I informed them I wanted to keep good old faithful Rover on the road oh dear. “Sorry sir” came the reply; “You will have to apply for temporary cover on-line”. That’s where the problems began. I went to their web-site where I was assured I could find temporary cover – could I hell. So I began to look at other sites and was horrified. Good old Rover cost me around £350 a year to insure fully comp, but for one month temporary cover the average is around £250, which is madness and a real rip-off.

Although it is easier to sell a car by using it with a car for sale notice in the windows, as I have done before, it looks as if from Monday the car will have to sit on my drive unused and uninsured as there is no way I am going to pay such a large sum of dosh for one month’s insurance. This then is what made be begin to ponder the effects of this new law, to do such a thing as I am considering is currently not a problem as long as I am not tempted to use the car, but at some stage in the future law abiding people in my current position will find life very expensive while the uninsured, couldn’t care less, nutters will continue on their uninsured way leaving a trail of problems behind them and our Government Ministers informing us they have sorted out the problem. In life there is the certainty of death, taxes and insurance – or not.