Safe Speed Forums

I have a horrible feeling that my son is about to become a criminal through no fault of his own - and there doesn't appear to be anything he can do about it. The reason? his VED and insurance expire on the same day!

The money to pay his insurance premium becomes available on Friday, and so he can't renew his insurance until that day. However, his insurers tell him that it takes four to five working days for his insurance certificate to be issued, so the certificate won't be available to him until the 3rd or 4th of March, which is a few days after his VED expires. My son will have continuous insurance, but the system won't let him renew his tax disc unless the insurance certificate he presents is valid on the first day of the period the disc covers (so his existing certificate won't do). DVLA are extremely unhelpful, and suggested that it was my son's fault for not ensuring that his insurance and VED were staggered! IOW, the system can't cope with a perfectly reasonable, legal, and valid scenario - and it's the motorists fault

Now, we have a little fascist of a traffic warden who I am convinced takes great delight on the first of each month to work overtime scouring the streets ticketing anyone who has an out-of-date tax disc. My son has no off-street parking, and so will probably fall foul of this.

BTW, Is there a way out of this that doesn't require my son to break the law? If not, is there a way out by proving "mitigating circumstances"?

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Will

He can renew his VED any time within the month before his expiry, so should be able to do so with his current insurance certificate today. The easiest way is to do so on-line which he will be able to do with a credit card, The system checks the MOT and insurance database and will accept paymenet by Debit/credit card. The disc will arrive within 5 days so will be here by Tuesday next week if he does it today.

No reason to not have continuous VED anymore.

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

Hi Patch, and thanks for replying. However, DVLA and my local VED-issuing post office say that the insurance certificate has to be valid on the first day that the new tax disc covers. His insurance expires at midnight 28 Feb, the first day of the VED period is 1 March. We've already tried to re-tax the car and been turned away because the existing insurance certificate is unacceptable!

I'm currently trying to re-tax his car using the DVLA on-line system, but it's down. FWIW, the tax on my car also expires the same day and while my V11 has a relicensing reference number, my son's does not. So, I suspect that we won't be able to use the on-line system for his car anyway. That said, even if we could, it takes five working days for the new disc to arrive - so that could still be too late.

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Will

Buy Tax Disc online! how come I haven't heard of this before! No more standing in the post office with the aroma of stale wee, surely not.

Great news
Max

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Tailgaters - Please Pass
You have an Accident to go to!

When you next get a V11 (licence renewal "invitation"), it should come with a booklet that tells you about this new facility. Also, your V11 should have a "Relicensing/SORN Reference Number" and instructions how to use it to renew via phone or over the 'net. DVLA tell me that if you have a reminder that has not got that reference, you won't be able to use the new system because either the MOT or insurance is not recorded on the appropriate database.

However, it takes five working days for the disc to arrive, longer if DVLA screw up. AFAICT, it's an offence not to display the VED disc (even if a valid one is in force for your vehicle), so you would be guilty of an offence if you'd paid but DVLA didn't send out the disc.

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Will

It is actually one of the few good IT projects that this Govt has done. The website address is www.dvla.gov.uk/vehiclelicence I used this to renew one of my bikes this year and the tax disc was with me in 4 days.

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

This is going to sound a little harsh but your son should have budgeted for the insurance premium and made sure he could pay it so he could have insurance before he needed to retax his car. If he pays promptly on the Friday could the insurance company not send him a covernote by first class post to arrive on the Saturday for him to tax the car then?

Alternatively he could go to a high street broker as they often issue covernotes and policies same day so he could get it done on the Friday and tax the car same day.

Yes, you will get the details with your renewal documentation. Only accepts debit cards, though, not credit cards.

However, you've always been able to renew by post, so you haven't had to physically visit a post office.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

FWIW, it is a little harsh. Last year, his insurance premium was just under £400. This year, despite having an additional year's NCD, it is nearly £750. We'd budgeted for £400 and, frankly, the premium hike came as a bit of a shock. Of course, we didn't find out in time to rebudget. However, we're stuck with his current insurers because the next cheapest wants over a grand. Basically, over the last year the insurance companies have "reassessed" his car and other circumstances - and this is exactly the sort of rip-off I expressed concern about in this thread last April.

WRT the covernote - I did ask the insurance company if they would supply one but they said they only provide covernotes for new business. For existing customers, it takes just as long for a covernote as for the proper certificate - so they just send certificates for existing customers.

Notwithstanding that, the system cannot cope with perfectly reasonable circumstances. It would be entirely reasonable for someone to renew insurance the day before it expires and the system should account for that. Because you can renew insurance "remotely", the system should either accept a faxed covernote or allow a period of grace for the documentation overlap. Now, DVLA tell me that they allow 14 days before sending out the automatic penalties. Unfortunately, that 14 days isn't enshrined in law. Thus, you commit an offence by not displaying the tax disc that the system won't let you obtain, and are at the mercy of jobsworth traffic wardens, ANPR, etc.

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Will

Will, can't you buy the new insurance now? Then by the weekend you'll have a certificate saying valid from 00:01 on the 1st, you'll be able to pay through the nose for your son's insurance, and the local traffic mutation can go back under his rock.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

If the insurance is renewed on Friday there is no need to have a covernote per se if you renew online as they will simply check the insurance data base which will reflect the continuous insurance. The vehicle will be taxed from the moment you get the confirmation screen online.

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

Yikes, another £350! That is a lot. I can understand his predicament. Try the website confused.com as it lets you query lots of online brokers. CIS, Frizzell & tesco (if you haven't already tried them) are good for young drivers.

Some people find a scanner and colour laser printer useful for this situation. Also, you can use the sewing machine to put little perforations around the copied disc!

Joking aside - the process of coupling the release of tax discs with appropriate documentation (although of good intent) has caused many anomalies like this one. A while back, it was not necessary to show that a specific vehicle was insured, so a person with an 'any other car' policy could tax 'any other car', i.e. someone else’s car. They may have tightened this now, but check it out - maybe you can buy tax for your son’s car using your policy by claiming that you want to drive it.

In the longer term, I want real-time online record keeping systems to be implemented, which will do away entirely with all paper based procedural anomalies.

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I stole this .sig

But he still won't have a physical tax disc, so that won't stop him getting a ticket if a warden comes along and spots him.

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Carl Prescott

No it won't but if the tax renewal has been accepted by the DVLA and the disc is in the post from them no court in the land would uphold that ticket. and he could print and display the Confirmation of renewal notice that the system generates. I doubt that any traffic warden would issue a ticket on reviewing such

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

Then you have considerably more faith in Traffic Wardens than I have. It was reported a few weeks ago that a Traffic Warden gave a ticket to a car parked in a disabled space for failing to display a disabled badge. It was early in the morning and the windscreen was covered in frost! I'm afraid they're not the fizziest drinks in the fridge.

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If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

Yes an I seem to recall that that ticket was dropped on appeal to the authority, in fact it had already been dropped by the time the press got hold of it.

The other point is that this would have been a civilian contracter traffic warden but they do not issue tickets for non display of tax discs that is done by a police traffic warden.

The real key is not whether the warden will issue a ticket, but whether that ticket would be upheld on appeal.

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

Patch brings up a good point. Willcove, is it a real traffic warden or one of these council contracted out types? From what you said earlier he sounds like the former, but if not he can't be after tax discs.

I've had another thought. If you buy a tax disc online don't you get some sort of reference number? I remember being in a similar situation some years ago when I had a company car. The incompetent wallies at the leasing company had me down for a different vehicle and sent me the wrong tax disc, and even that didn't turn up until a week after the old one expired. I had no valid tax disc on display for over a month as it had to be found by the leasing company, sent to my head office and eventually come to me through internal mail . Best I could do was to phone the leasing mob for the number on the disc and get them to fax me a letter saying "we screwed it up and we'll pay if you get fined" which I kept in the car in case I was stopped. (BTW, this all came back to bite me again come P11D time and I found out I'd been taxed for this other car... which was a lot bigger and nicer and more expensive than the povvo spec Astra I was rolling round in - useless bastards in payroll had taken the leasing company's word for it instead of checking with my bosses who knew bloody well what I was driving.) Now it's not quite the same, but I'd have thought that if you can show that you intend to buy a disc and display it but you're being prevented from doing so by someone else, and that bearing in mind this is only going to be for a couple of days, surely that should be enough.

One last thing - if I were you I'd buy a six month disc so this doesn't happen again.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I think the real key is that you're not made to jump through hoops by some officious mini Hitler trying to achieve his targets.

Also, a civilian warden does not have to issue you with a ticket for non display of a tax disk, they can just report you to the DVLA. I know, it's happened to me when my tax disk had expired that morning.

I wish this was an adults only forum, I have this overwhelming urge to delve into my considerable lexicon of swear words.

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If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

I could buy it now, but only if I agree to pay in monthly installments and end up paying an additional £60 for the privilege.

FWIW, I think that Patch has the best idea - to use the online system (if it will work). Right now, the online tax system is down. I did manage to tax my own car this morning but the system fell over when I tried to tax my son's. If the system will let me tax his car on Friday or Saturday, I'll print a copy of the confirmation page to leave on his dash and stick a "tax bought online - ref:xxxxxx" in the widscreen. If that doesn't work, perhaps I should invite the press to court

Thanks all for your help,

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Will