Brit_in_Japan

I've only just caught up with all the ins and outs of this incident and I'm very angry about it.

7 weeks ago I was visiting a friend. We'd spent a few days catching up on things, went mountain biking, curry a few beers, the usual type of thing. The morning I was going to head off, my mate's mobile went, his parents had been involved in a road accident less than ten miles away.

We were out of his flat within 2 minutes and headed over to see what we could do to help. We were shocked when we got there, his father had said they were both OK, yet there were two ambulances, two fire brigade vehicles and about 5 police cars. The road was closed both directions.

His mother was taken to hospital with chest injuries and one passenger in the other car was also taken to hospital. From what my mate's dad said, and what a number of other witnesses said, the other car (a Passat) came straight out from a side road without stopping. The driver of the other vehicle, a man in his early twenties I would guess, said the brakes failed and so a VOSA inspector was called in to investigate.

It could have been much worse, the main road has a 60mph limit. It was fortunate no-one was killed.

From what the police said at the time, it was likely the Passat driver was going to be charged with one or more offence. He was required to produce his documents to the Police. He presented some insurance papers and the Police accepted them. However his insurer says the vehicle wasn't covered at the time of the accident and therefore they are not liable. It appears that the man had put insurance on the car a couple of weeks before the accident. Then, after buying a new tax disk, had cancelled the insurance policy. He did however keep the insurance certificate and showed it to the Police, which they obviously didn't check with the insurer.

My friend's parents, in their 60s/70's, had never been in a traffic accident before. They were insured only TPF&T with no uninsured loss recovery cover (stupid I know, but they didn't think this type of thing could happen to them). The car was a write off. They had to pay a recovery and storage charge for their written off car of around £650. My friend's mother is still recovering from chest injuries, plus also a foot injury which wasn't originally apparent but which has required hospital treatment since.

Normally you would sue the other party in a case like this, except no-one can contact the Passat driver. The Police say he's a "traveller" and seem uninterested/incapable of doing anything more.

I do have a photograph of the Passat driver and I'm very tempted to post it here just in case anyone recognises him and can help the Police to get in touch.

Just remember folks, there are unscrupulous people out there who are uninsured and don't give a monkey's for anyone else or the hurt and loss they cause. Make sure you all have proper insurance cover so that you don't suffer like these good people have.

rallycol

iTrader: (4)

Claim through the MIB (motorists insurance bureau) might take a while but you will get payed out,PM me if you are stuck !

gazza-uk

yes they will get the lot back inc policy excess

Brit_in_Japan

Thanks fellas, never heard of the MIB before but have passed on the details to my mate.

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

Yup, everytime we pay for our renewals a percentage goes into the fund.

gpssti4

iTrader: (6)

Yes, there is a pot of money that us insured types pay for the uninsured types , not fair, but times like this it's a good idea. Glad to hear that your friends parents will recover okay.

Leslie

Just underlines what a serious offence it is to drive while uninsured.

Les

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Well yes............ but what it undermines YET AGAIN to me is the duplicitous nature of the police.

CATCH someone without insurance=prosecution, (and so it ought).

FIND OUT later that someone has no insurance=not bothered, hard cheese mate.

Now it either IS or ISN'T a crime, but once again the lazy tw@s that are our modern police get their cake and eat it.........

andythejock01wrx

Hello Brit formerly in Japan.

I'm an insurance claims advisor.

The above posters are right enough.

The Motor Insurers Bureau is funded by contributions by all ABI members (ie all UK based insurers). It has it's own staff, but it also uses the claims staff of various UK insurers to investigate claims on it's behalf.

Your mates folks can claim for both personal injury and the vehicle damage (a recent change), less the MIB excess, which last time I heard was £250.
The claim would be submitted by a solicitors acting on the claimant's behalf, who would write to the MIB asking them to investigate the claim. You should be able to find soicitors that will not charge a fee to the claimant (they get to charge their usual solictors fee to the MIB if they are successful.

It does take months on end, but your mate's folks appear to have a very strong case.

The MIB is at :

Welcome To MIB and MIIC

HTH,

Andy Mc

andythejock01wrx

And the relevant section is :

link:Welcome To MIB and MIIC

Snazy

lol lets not turn this into another anti police thread eh.

They guy will come to their attention sooner or later, and get nicked im sure. People like this dont only do this sort of thing once.

The main thing here is that the family members are ok, and will get paid out.
Direct Line were awesome when the guy wrote my car off, uninsured too. And the police got a successful conviction against the driver too.

lol @ why do we need police, sorry but thats a bit of an obvious one if you take the rose tinted glasses off for a minute.

PaulC72

Well I am sorry to hear about the incident & I am glad they are ok or at least recovering well, it is so annoying when unisured drivers are allowed to drive on the roads, their should be a government database that covers all insurance policies and when they are cancelled it gets noted on it.

Just curious how come they never insured themselves fully comp as it usually only costs a little more and provides all the protection you usually need?

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Sell a few speed cameras and get a few more cops in cars out there, and the "traveller" scumbag might have got pulled and the car scrapped...

Dunx

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

I too had problems with an uninsured driver and the police. I was hit, and the police attended (as I was reported for assult) . He was given a producer etc, and did NOT have insurance it transpired. The police would NOT persue him because I refused to make a clamim on my own insurance.

Cost me over £500 in the end to sort that

pslewis

Insured or not would not have altered the fact there was an accident.

They will be covered, as has been said above - what is really annoying is that the Traveller Scum will not be chased or sought by the police ........ a generally law abiding citizen with a permanent place of residence would be hounded for dropping a Mars wrapper.

We need to remove these scumbags from society ................ they care for no-one but themselves.

bob r

iTrader: (46)

Any road traffic collision that occurs and someone is injured as a result would require a police investigation, thats for sure. The victims of the accident may well not be aware of what is going on investigation wise but the police do have a duty to investigate it and this should be checked bo ensure something is being done.

As for the MIB, I was in a very similar situation and the driver was never traced. I got a decent payout although 2 years later. A solicitor is not needed providing that the police will provide all the details required for the claim forms to be completed.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Nope, sorry, I STILL can't see it. It's either an offence, or it isn't. You can't have a system that says it's illegal to do something, but only if found out, AT THE TIME by the police. Thats' just plain stupid.

I agree with Pete: get a few more coppers out there, sack a few of the lazy thieving tw@s that just sit behind cameras all day, and get this uninsured SCUM off our roads...........AND START BY PROSECUTING EVERY ONE THAT DOES IT, NOT JUST THE ONES THE POLICE HAPPEN TO CATCH AT THE TIME

Alcazar

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

That's bit hard on the police, Pete, they aren't ALL scumbags................oh, I see, you mean the traveller?

Alcazar

Snazy

Still cant see what?
That some cops out there are actually trying to make a difference?
Its not down to an individual officer to decide what he does and does not follow up on. Blame the cronies at the top for that sort of thing.

Plenty do get caught daily using ANPR, and all people do is whine about "big brother". Sadly the courts are the next failing, and seem to let people get away with literally murder.

I got a recification notice for my car a few months back. They sent a letter saying they did not receive the completed form, I replied saying I did send it, please send another and I will do it again. And got a letter back saying naaaa dont worry about it.

There are SO many people out there commiting offences (things such as speeding are ok though as everyone complains when they get caught that its just police wasting time and robbing us) that its almost impossible to stay on top of.

I would however agree that something needs to be done about travellers. Law of their own!
As for uninsured drivers, scum of the earth imo, just like drink drivers.
Question is, if they catch this one, what will happen, he will get a ban on a licence half his band of merry men are using and just use another name.

The police would usually run a PNC at the time of attending which should bring up if he is covered, if it a major insurer. If its not a major one, they would do a 7 day wonder, which is usually only received by a civilian officer, and recorded in the station log thingy.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Still can't see what? Well that ANYONE without insurance needs prosecuted, but for these, and any other coppers to say that they can't/won't do anything is shameful. They should hang their heads in shame. Either uphold the law, or get out of the job. The whinging b*ggers are pretty good at chasing someone they reckon was speeding, (which probably harmed no-one). Like I said, it either IS an offence, or it's NOT. No half way, no fudge.

And DEFO stop whining that it's not their fault, they are only obeying orders. As I've stated elsewhere, THAT cut no ice in 1945.........

Alcazar

Snazy

Whining about what?? A PC does not decide what cases he is working on, he is a worker ant at the end of the day. Its not Starsky and Hutch
its the system, the CPS and the "management" who are deciding what is of importance. Just after the Home Secretary decides a crack down on something, the order of importance changes.

I doubt very much the police officer who attended that day, deicided he was not bothering with it. If it does not tick the right boxes, it gets shelved, simple as really.

lol as for "The whinging b*ggers are pretty good at chasing someone they reckon was speeding, (which probably harmed no-one). "............ 2 sets of rules, well done mate.
Speeding is an offence, as is no insurance. They BOTH require following up.

No double standards.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Don't make me laugh, and yourself look daft.

Really............no double standards in our police?

So it's OK to chase one to the ends of the earth and refuse to do the other 'cos YOU didn't catch them? Get real.

Is there any wonder that over 50% of the population now wouldn't help a police officer in trouble?

And as I said, I don't give a flying fek WHO tells 'em what to do. "I was only obeying orders", cut no ice in 1945, and cuts even less now. If I'm not sick of hearing whining coppers saying they don't understand why Joe Public hates 'em ' because they "were only obeying orders"............

Meanwhile, they lie TO you, they lie ABOUT you, they lie in court, they prosecute what they feel like and let their mates off, etc etc, but hey, lets all respect them?

Alcazar

Snazy

lol im not making myself look stupid mate, just stating fact

As for the double standards, I think you mis-read.... Its you I meant are quoting double standards saying a speeder is not worth going after.

I will leave it there as im not gonna put on full keyboard battle gear this time of night.

You have your opinion, I have mine...........

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

OK. but yours is wrong

And I didn't say speeders weren't worth going after, I said if you're gonna chase one to the ends of the earth, then chase them ALL, and START with the ones who do harm. NOT the easy targets.

Alcazar

bob r

iTrader: (46)

chase them ALL ? mmm somehow that would be difficult especially with all these community officers needlessly taking the tax payers money as wages for doing F... all.

boomer

Presumably he would also have had to produce his driving licence, which should have his address on. One would have hoped that the police would have made a note of this, and if there was any doubt as to it's authenticity they would have made (insisted on) further checks - after all, why bother producing documents if they are not going help prove someones identity.

This does sound like sloppy and lazy behavior on the part of the police

I am not saying that ACAB, but if they can send 5 cars to the scene of an accident, you would think that they could follow up what is quite a serious breaking of the law!! Also, by not following this up, they are effectively encouraging the "traveller" to continue in his illegal and selfish ways

mb

Snazy

What you actually said was

Which suggested what I commented on. Sounded like double standards saying they are wrong for chasing speeders. Says nothing about distance or effort, just speeder doing nothing wrong........ they are... speeding.

As Bob says, sadly there is not the time, money or resources to track EVERY offender of every kind down. Its still how its always been, wrong place, wrong time.

Sadly things like the human rights act seem to trip police up, not being able to arrest someone with a very minor offence. People are caught daily for no insurance, and are simply reported for it, car ceased in some cases, and sent on their way. Its not an arrestable offence. This is why people with no licences still receive driving bans. Once officially banned and its on the PNC, it IS an arrestable offence, for which you can be detained. But after that they are still at the mercy of some pretty useless magistrates.

scoob_babe

I got hit by an uninsured driver, but as the case with the dodgier parts of society, he obviously knew far more evasion tricks than the police could get him for.
Apparently I was lucky I wasn't pulled out of the car and assaulted as he is a known local thug with history of witness intimidation. He was also pulled over later in the day by the police and flatly denied being in an accident desipte having green scoob paint on his car.
To cut a long story short, it appears that the insurance co did more investigation of the saga since they found out that the car had false plates (registered to a Ford, not a Jag XKS that hit me), the car (Jag or Ford?) had been sold as scrap and the house to whichever car it was had also been repossessed. I got some recompense from the MIB and to be fair, it came through very quickly. The downside is that I had to claim and got stuck with it on insurance history evern though we had NCB protection.

Leslie

Yes I do also agree that it is shameful that the police cant be arsed to follow this up and prosecute the driver having been informed about the con that he pulled on them in the firts place.

Les

Brit_in_Japan

Thanks for your comments !

I have to say the Police officers on the day of the accident were great, letting us know what was happening, taking witness statements, breath testing drivers and coming along to the hospital to see how my mates parents were. That said, it's a pretty big failure of the system to not check that insurance documents presented are valid/current. He could have been arrested on the spot for not providing valid insurance. Of course then he would have been released on bail and probably would have done a disappearing act anyway

But it's good to hear that people have had good experiences with the MIB. Thanks again