Wednesday, 21 February 2007

New Motoring Offence In The U.K.

By Malcolm Forster

In the New Road Safety Act 2006 which recently passed through parliament there is a new offence of "Being the registered keeper of a vehicle the use of which is not insured".The previous eqiuvalent offence was "Using a vehicle on a public road without insurance."

So now you don't have to actually being doing anything to break the law!How many classic cars are used all year round? Therefore will they be insured for the full year? What about restoration projects?There must be thousands of cars in garages , lock ups , barns etc which are registered but are not in use or in fact usable , are the registered keepers all going to remove fixed penalty notices or worse , they could have there vehicles seized and destroyed.

If you have a classic/restoration project / race or rally car and you don't keep it insured all the time , presumably you should SORN it to notify it's off road status ( most pre 1973 cars qualify for F.O.C. road tax and seldom have SORN declared ).I know that this law has been introduced to clamp down on uninsured drivers which have been a menace in the U.K. however the DVLA know which cars have "historic vehicle" on their tax discs and maybe they could have exempted them from this offence thus cutting out unneccesary paperwork and administration for the owners and the authorities concerned. Yet another piece of legislation well thought through or another "beta version " thrown out to see what amendments will be needed?

Have a look at my historic rally blogs: More Historic Rally Information My Historic Rally Car My business website :- Private Number Plates

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