Taxi Driver Online

A story going around our neck of the woods is that a Hack was stopped by the police and they asked to see his documents, in this case his insurance.

The car was rented so it was the owner had the actual insurance certificate ! As the actual driver never had the insurance certificate with him they apparently impounded the car.

I have always been given to understand that so long as you can prove who you are, then they would issue you/I with a seven day producer.

In this case the driver had to get the insurance certificate from the owner and then pay a substantial amount of monies to have the car released from a compound.

Could this happen?

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if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

Yes it could and indeed it does. Particulaly with fleet policys where the driver is not named on the policy. I had an experience at Heathrow T3 where the ANPR system sugested that my car was not taxed. The police checked with the computer and it also said that the vehicle was not insured. It took several minutes before they got confirmation that the car was insured in my wifes name and that it was a fleet policy. The officer told me that I had passed the attitude test so I could continue but he did say that without proff of insurance for the driver they can impound the vehicle until you can proove That you are insured for that vehicle. You then have to pay a release fee of around £140 plus a daily fee for storage.

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Grandad,

Yes.

I suspect his insurance details weren't on the Insurance Database for whatever reasons.

One bit that does sound strange is why the owner didn't get his certificate down to the police rather sharpish.

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IDFIMH

Tbh I do not know the ins and outs of it. I can only imagine that it might have been rented from a one/two man band so to speak, and then he might have had a job to get hold of him/her.

I am just thinking that if your vehicle photo I.D was placed in the front windscreen (as it would be in our case), then they would know that the driver was kosher and also traceable. On that basis, they in my humble opinion, should have given him a producer and allowed him to go on his way.

It goes without saying (but there again I am going to say it), if there was no insurance, then throw the book at him and the owner.

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if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

The law has changed regarding insurance. If you, as the driver of a vehicle, can't show that at the time of being stopped, that you, the driver, is covered by the insurance certificate, the police will impound the vehicle until such time that you can proove that you are covered. There are far to many people that just take out insurance to get a tax disc and then cancel the insurance.

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Grandad,

The Continuos Insurance Enforcement legislation is now in full swing. An easy way to check the vehicle you are driving is correctly shown as being insured is by going to www.askmid.com.

Sometimes mistakes occur in reg nos etc going onto the MID and a car can show up as not insured, then all hell breaks loose! I find that when I add a new vehicle to a customers fleet policy it can sometime take a few days to register on the MID. The legislation allows for a period of up to 7 days for a vehicle to be registered on a fleet policy but it can still sometimes cause problems. I always suggest carrying a copy of the certificate or covernote in the car, even if it is only a photocopy. We quite often get calls from police who have pulled over a car and want to check insurance details. Fine if we are open!

The problem of named drivers has arisen in Manchester. A driver had an altercation with an unmarked Police car. Naturally he failed the attitude test, his cab was rented and his name did not appear on the Police computer. They kept him about two hours until, proof was sent that, he was insured.
Every Cab and PH driver should carry a photocopy just to prevent this.