Safe Speed Forums

There is an article in todays Auto Express where they give the results of a 3 month experiment where they purchased a cheap Renault 5 in France and registered it correctly to a French address, and then brought it into the UK and tried to get fined.

No matter what they did, nobody appeared to make any attempt at tracking them down, even though they had done everything possible to make sure that they were trackable.

They drove through the congestion charging zone of London, parked in bus lanes, on double yellows, without tickets in pay and displays. Sometimes they even sat across the street and watched the Traffic Wardens start writing the ticket, then get to the number plate and give up. They tried London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, and after 3 months waiting nothing had been sent to the registered address in France.

They then followed up with the authorities to find out what was going on, and discovered that basically a foreign plated car can get away with anything on UK roads as long as they do not park in a tow-away zone. Kent police admitted that 1,148 foreign cars were caught by speed cameras last year, and none was followed up, and Birmingham Scamera Partnership admits that they delete the images of foreign plated cars.

So basically they have confirmed that authorities only following things up if it not too much effort, which to me confirms that it is all about the money, because if safety was the motivation, then everyone would at least get a "slapped wrist" letter even if prosecution was not possible.

Then they talk to other drivers of foreign vehicles and discover that many of them actually live in the UK.... Obviously Europeans that have moved to the UK can bring their own vehicles and as well as being able to get away with vitually all motoring offences they also benefit from substantially cheaper insurance. These people have friends some of which are british, and they are now doing the same, and there is even mention of a delivery business that has a fleet of non-UK registered vans solely for the purpose of avoiding Speeding, Parking and other offences.

Everybody with half a brain knows that if an obvious (and not obviously illegal) loophole appears that benefits the person concerned, they will use it - cheap alcohol and tobacco from abroad is old hat, it now looks like car trips abroad will get a new lease of life for different reasons - virtual freedom from the UKs obsessive persecution of drivers.

While I say good luck to them (those running these vehicles), I am a little concerned that large numbers of cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side might be making our roads more dangerous in addition to the extra risk caused by the ability to park anywhere you want. Is the obsession with easy prosecution based on number plates alone actually making the UKs roads more dangerous?

As I said on another thread, a Southern Irish car is the one to get (RHD). If you have a foreign registered car and you are a UK resident, you must register it in the UK within 6 months of its importation.
However, if you are also resident abroad, or partially so, then so long as the vehicle goes out of this country at least once every 6 months, it's quite legal.
The best option seems to be to register a company in Dublin, buy a car there, tax and insure it there (no-claims bonuses are transferrable to Eire, but not so easily to other European countries - all the UK insurers have offices in Dublin). Under Euro legislation there must be no artificial barriers to free trade and business within the Euro zone, so just having a Dublin office for an English company would be OK so far as vehicle use is concerned.
Then, as was so rightly said, you are more or less cash-camera exempt.
Of course, if you also have an Irish address, you can swop your UK licence for an Irish (clean) one, without taking a test, and use it in the UK. I have a friend in S.Wales who has done exactly that. If stopped he gives his Irish address, but mentions that he also happens to have a house in Wales. He's never had any problem.Remember, the rules are really only able to catch out the masses and not those who 'opt-out' of the system.
It's your own choice to take part in the camera cash collection really.

I missed that thread, and the southern ireland registration would appear to be much safer than what Auto Express did.

The price of the car purchased for this experiment was 800 euro (£600) and in the short period when they actually used the car they evaded £880 of fines (only 10 offences). Even with the 6 month restriction if you chose to run a cheap wreck you could sell it after 5 months and 20 days or so and get a replacement. Depreciation would be minimal for a car that cheap, and you could probably avoid ever having to get an MOT or equivalent done. In fact for someone living in the London area the savings are massive and you could probably afford to have it towed away just before the 6 months are up!

I'm surprised that whoever thought of this "experiment" didn't think about it years ago, because I certainly did and it has worked very well for me since 1994 where cars are concerned.

I don't overly worry about being caught by a camera on my bike because the only camera that can catch a bike is a GATSO, and on the 3 occasions I have been caught on camera, the authorities have never been able to prove that it is actually my bike in the picture and not a clone

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

You have to do something really outrageous to be prosecuted in the UK in a foreign-registered vehicle - the one I remember is the German who drove up the A1 through North Yorkshire and Co Durham on a Sunday morning at 140 mph. A court was specially convened to deal with him and he got a substantial fine - obviously no points on his (German) licence.

I remember that guy, IIRC the only reason they even managed to catch him was because he slowed down to 90mph while travelling through a contraflow system

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

quote="Rewolf"]There is an article in todays Auto Express where they give the results of a 3 month experiment where they purchased a cheap Renault 5 in France and registered it correctly to a French address, and then brought it into the UK and tried to get fined.

No matter what they did, nobody appeared to make any attempt at tracking them down, even though they had done everything possible to make sure that they were trackable...[/size]



I can confirm this, with the following story.

A German guy I know who was about to be based in the UK for two years actually bought a new right-hand drive BMW 330D from the local dealer in Germany specifically to use in the UK, planning to eventually sell it here to a UK buyer prior to his return to Germany. He registered it at his German company address, and drove it here on German plates for over two years. He could do this because the German company address was valid and real, and the company was trading.

Just prior to advertising and selling it, he 'imported' it and registered it with DVLA Swansea. Interestingly, though the car had never been registered in UK, it was allocated UK plates with the prefix letter appropriate to its original date of German registration. I bought the car off him in 2002.

He claimed to have been flashed by Gatso cameras a minimum of 20x (TWENTY TIMES) EVERY WEEK in the UK, sometimes travelling at 30 or 40mph over the posted limit, and his German company had NEVER RECEIVED ONE SINGLE LETTER OR COMMUNICATION OF ANY KIND. He once claimed to have set off 15 cameras in one day.

Eire registration, and an Irish driving licence, is an easy and obvious response to the lying, greedy scamera mafias now infesting the UK like a dangerous virus. The thought of setting off 15 or 20 gatsos every day and smiling in the full kowledge that one is completely immune from prosecution fills one with a nice, warm glow. This is the way to go, fellas. And it's 100% legal.

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

Has anyone looked into this as a serious business opportunity?

Strikes me that all you need is foreign plates. Surprised there isn't a cottage ( or by now mansion, or even palace ) industry producing cloned foreign plates. After all which authority is going to chase it up - and would the euro authorities even bother .

You going to take full responsibility when somebody gets pissed up and kills a pedestrian in one of your "company" cars then?
You can rest assured that while the authorities know that it's more aggravation than what they will earn to trace you for triggering a GATSO, you can bet a pound to a pinch of pig shit that they will come after your arse if you kill somebody no matter where the car is registered.


Get caught driving around with plates that don't actually relate to the vehicle (and a simple chassis number check will reveal all), and you then get done for fraud which is a much more serious offence.

Besides which, you need a little bit more than a simple number plate if you intend to pass the vehicle off as foreign registered.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

No: you must legally register the car at an address outside the UK, and the plates displayed must correspond to the vehicle registration documents (the equivalent of the UK V5). This way, you are fully legal and insured. Anything less is illegal and irresponsible criminal behaviour, and cannot be condoned.

The point is that this is a FULLY LEGAL way of avoiding ALL gatso and other speed camera prosecutions from the greedy, lying bunch of con artists who now run 'road safety' policy in the UK. It's a moral stance and a legitimate protest. If they want to screw money out of me, they are going to have to damned well work for it. In reality, with millions of prosecution letters to send out to safe and responsible motorists, they can't be bothered to pursue any that present them with difficulties, extra time and cost. That's their decision. I am 100% legal.

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

I might be accused of sounding like an old fart here, but someone who drives like that is simply providing fodder for the "Speed Kills" industry. He was obviously driving like a complete twat and would have irritated and possibly frightened a lot of other road users.

The public roads aren't race tracks - and I say that as a retired professional racing-driver. If he wants to go that quickly he should save it for track-days. People who drive like that, in my humble opinion, want locking-up, for their own and everyone else's safety! </rant>

If one may be permitted to close with a very Politically Incorrect statement:- It's like a moronic dwarf; It ain't big, and it ain't clever!

We will occasionally get registration numbers to look for from the camera operators, for this kind of activity.

This kind of routine disregard can provide us with some quite useful evidence for disqual driving etc.

I'd have thought that the chap concerned would have been on a target list fairly quickly, in the unlikely event there was more than a smidgin of truth in his regalings.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

On a point of practical law, can you disqualify someone from driving in the UK if they hold a valid licence registered somewhere else - say from Japan or the US? How does this work?

Many years ago, I was driving thru Belgium towards Zeebrugge on a virtually empty motorway at about 11.30 on a Friday evening and was pulled over by the local trafpol for exceeding the 120kph limit. They demanded cash, but told me they never bothered about the licences of non-Belgian nationals and were not even interested in seeing my UKDL. The message was that endorsements or bans on non-local licences were difficult or impossible to enforce, so no-one bothered. Do you ever come up against this problem in the UK?

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

Simply disqualify them in UK court, they're then banned in this country.

In practice we stop plenty of foreigners, usually speeders, or foreign HGV drivers. I can't recall not having a driving licence produced to me.
I'd be lying if I said he didn't get 'added discretion', but I'd bet most would rather pay £100 fine rather than suffer the 15 minute lecture with me swinging my handcuffs, them not knowing whether their driver's going to be locked up and put in front of the next court at a time which is usually far too late for their ferry crossing .

They are then allowed to proceed but informed that their speed/ manner of driving will be monitored for the remainder of their journeys in this country.

I have brought a few foreigners into custody but usually for ridiculous driving, bordering on dangerous.

I understand we'll soon be able to ticket foreign drivers at the roadside.

Shame, I prefer dishing out the lecture myself.

I'd be a bit suspicious to start with if a foreign driver had no documentation. Might just be worth the 10 minute trip to the nick to check him out properly.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

Thanks Ian. That's enlightening and useful.

Do you really stand there swinging handcuffs?

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

Don't forget, a lot of UK truck companies have re-registered some of their trucks in Belgium to avoid the high rates of vehicle duty in the UK (Stobarts for instance).
The reasons for registration in other Euro countries does not have to be because of speed cameras. For example, if a foreign company started a UK subsidiary their vehicles could well be owned by the foreign parent company. About 20 years ago my company opened an office in Germaqny. I spent a lot of time there and usually took my UK registered rhd BMW with me. Never got stopped or questioned, even though my car was parked outside a German office block for a lot of the time.
The Euro rules about freedom of trade make this all quite legal. However, I don't know about personally owned/registered vehicles. The question is, who would ever check this, so long as the vehicle is properly taxed and insured in its country of registration?