Being charged with an offence of driving without insurance can result in up to 8 penalty points, vehicle seizure and significant financial penalties. This can be a very technical area of the law and understanding the issues as well as knowing the potential defences we can consider can be crucial if you find yourself in this situation, for example:

• You genuinely believed you were insured, having been misled by an insurer or policy document.
• The vehicle was not being driven and was parked on private property.
• You were not the registered owner or keeper of the vehicle at the time.
• The vehicle was driven without your consent, and you had taken reasonable steps to prevent its use.
• You had a valid insurance policy, but there was an administrative error.
• You were driving in response to a genuine emergency.

If you drive a vehicle you are required to have the minimum of third party insurance otherwise you will be guilty of this offence.

Section 143 of The Road Traffic Act 1988, makes it an offence to use, cause or permit to be used a motor vehicle on a road or other public place when there is not in force a policy of insurance.

This offence will result in the endorsement of 6-8 penalty points or a discretionary disqualification as well as a fine.

There are only two factual defences to driving without insurance, that you were actually insured or that you weren’t the driver at the time of the offence. In some cases it may be just a case of asking an insurer to confirm there was insurance in place at the time even if they subsequently cancelled the policy.

In other cases whilst you may be technically guilty you could ask the Court to consider “special reasons,” not to impose penalty points.

In many cases of no insurance people believe they were insured. Examples can be because cover has lapsed without their knowledge, or that the purpose of their journey was not in fact covered by the policy terms, or that they had relied upon someone else to arrange the cover and had been misled in some way to believing they were insured.

Believing you had insurance may amount to a Special Reasons argument. A genuine and honest misapprehension that you were insured to drive may amount to a Special Reason if the belief is based on reasonable grounds. Assuming that your policy had auto-renewed, for example, may not be special reasons unless you could prove you had opted in to auto renew and a payment had been made, but relying upon another person to arrange the policy, when it was reasonable for you to rely upon them, and being misled into believing cover was in place, could result in Special Reasons being found.

A young adult who is advised by their parent that they are added to the parent’s policy as a named driver is another common argument. It is usually held that it is reasonable to rely upon a parent in such circumstances, and to believe it when they are told they are insured to drive.

If the Magistrates find Special Reasons to exist they have a discretion not impose penalty points or a disqualification.  We can assist you in preparing and representing you in Court.

S143 Road Traffic Act 1988 provides a statutory defence and states that a person shall not be convicted if he proves:

• ( A ) That the vehicle did not belong to him and was not in his possession under a loan agreement or contract hire;
• ( B ) That he was using the vehicle in the course of his employment; and
• ( C ) That he did not know, nor have any reason to believe, that there was no insurance policy in place to cover the use.

This means that you may have a defence available to you, depending upon the terms of your employment and what your employer had told you, we will need to evidence this in court, but we can advise you as to the best way to do so.