Allegro Club International

[Graham]

Hi Guys,
Have you all heard about CIE? I read an article (CCFS I think) and the writer came to the conclusion that it will be a good thing. Worth the small amount of hassle it will entail.
I, however, disagree and I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about it.
Sure, we have a BIG problem with uninsured drivers but this is NOT going to change a thing there. It's just going to catch out the honest driver.

It has been law for a while but apparently they're going to start enforcing it in April. The general gist is that if you have a vehicle which is taxed it MUST be insured. Even if it is on private land. If the car is SORNed it does not need to be insured.

I bought my Scorpio taxed and MoT'd 12 months ago but I didn't start using it in earnest until June. As it was taxed I did insure it for the odd day here and there so that I could move it about when people got fed up with it on their drive.
Before that I had my brother's old Corsa which had a niggly misfire so I would do some work on it at weekends then drive it for a week or so, again on temporary (or Day) insurance to test drive it.

Now, the car would have to be SORNed and then, when I want to use it, I'd have to TAX it AND insure it. If I only used it for a week I would then have to SORN it, cash in the tax (lose that month) and cancel the insurance (and pay the admin fee. No wonder the insurance companies support it!

I can think of loads of scenarios off the top of my head where this is going to be a real problem.

You buy a new car and want to sell your old one. You have transferred your insurance to your new car and have advertised your old one. Now you have 2 choices. You either have to insure your old car at vast expense (second car, no NCB) or you have to SORN it. How do prospective buyers test drive it???

You live up a welsh hill and the first snows arrive. You want to change to use your landrover but your everyday car has 6 months tax on it. Now you have to SORN it. Then the snow clears and you want to go back to your every day car. You then have to tax it again. You would normally leave the tax on the landrover just in case it snows again but now you have to SORN it.

I go and visit my elderly uncle once a month. He owns a car but is finding it difficult to drive because he's had a hip operation. So, I take him out in his car (his wheelchair doesn't fit in mine) I take out temporary insurance for the days I visit him. His insurance is up but he's still got say 4 months tax. He's not sure he'll drive again but wants me to be able to use the car. That means he HAS to renew his insurance or SORN his car.

See what I mean? I can think of hundreds of other scenarios. Tow cars, Campers and most obviously to us, Classic cars.

If they want us to do this we should be able to buy Road Tax by the day too!

There is another issue too. With everybody having to SORN their cars on and off, this will take money OUT of the DVLA. Whereas in the past I would have left that 3 months tax on my car (worth, what £30??). Now I have to SORN it I will get that money back. Also, every time you SORN or TAX your car it will cost the DVLA money. Bet your bottom dollar there will soon be an admin fee to SORN you car!

The entire system is outdated. It was a system brought in at the start of the last century! One simple solution is to put the road tax on fuel. Then you pay proportionally for the number of miles you do and how thirsty (environmentally unfriendly) your car is. An MoT disc could be used and issued on presentation of a roadworthy vehicle and an insurance certificate. Oh I bet there's many much better systems you could dream up. But that's another whinge!

Watch out for CIE!!

[Colin T]

Graham, I totally, totally agree with you. It is bloody stupid.

As you have said, it will screw over people who temporarily insure their cars. Further to you examples above, if somebody was to be temporarily insured for a few separate individual days in a month, they would have to tax, drive, SORN, tax, drive, SORN, tax, drive, SORN, all in one month. As you do not get a tax rebate for each day of use, this will mean that those people lose out on 'part-of-a-months' tax - which, if they repeat this process several times in month, could cost more than leaving it taxed the whole time! Either way, the motorist has to pay more AGAIN.

Not to mention that such repeat taxing and SORNing in quick succession will probably make DVLA's computer explode, and then there is the problem of the few days that it takes for SORN to be enforced after you have sent off the paperwork, by which time you've had to buy a new tax disc for the next day that you want to drive. If new tax is taken out before the previous SORN paperwork is dealt with, it will make DVLA's HAL9000 go apoplectic.

The fundamental concept of the new offence that is being created by this legislation is absolutely stupid beyond belief. You could be committing an offence by having a taxed car that is not insured WHEN IS IS NOT BEING DRIVEN OR KEPT ON THE ROAD. So basically, you could commit and offence of not having insurance, even if you haven't been driving it on a public road, which is the only time that need the car to be insured (or was until the expletive stupid Road Safety Act 2006). The old legislation made perfect sense, in that you only need insurance if you are driving or keeping a car on a public road.

And how will this reduce uninsured driving? People will just be in two camps - those with both tax and insurance, and those with neither. And people could easily drive around in someone else's car, the owner of which is insured to drive it, but the driver could have none. An offence is still committed (and the ANPR computer will just say 'someone's insured to drive it, so it's OK').

The only uninsured drivers it will eliminate will be those who have honestly forgotten to renew their cover until the first warning letter arrives (if they renew quickly they will avoid any fine/punishment). I do not believe this will affect intentional uninsured drivers, who are the ones that need to be targeted most.

The idiots that devised this scheme and those who voted it through Parliament (who clearly were not aware of the full implications and practicalities and yet still endorsed a major piece of legislation) should take a very long walk off a short plank. How many millions in admin fees will this cost, and how many intentional uninsured drivers will be stopped? It's completely ridiculous.
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