UPDATED: Near Miss of the Day 464: Police finally take action against a driver who refused to give his identity after a punishment pass

Unfortunately I suspect that the sort of person who would behave like this might well choose not to inform their insurance company about the conviction. Obviously they are running the risk of invalidating their insurance but they probably don't give a toss as long as they have the paperwork to show that they are insured (or not!).

brooksby wrote:

They were probably punished more for failing to disclose than they would have had they simply been done for the close pas...

Surely that's a good thing. Otherwise drivers would be tempted to always fail to disclose if they thought they would get a lesser punishment.

It probably happens because either the driver thinks it won't be followed up (as almost happened here) or they're at risk of losing their license due to existing points so the registered keeper (e.g. their partner) to take the hit.

That's why I think in most cases, unless there are more than two people on the vehicle's insurance, all the insured should be sanctioned equally for failure to disclose when asked. Only if there if there are at least three possible drivers can any one of them claim not to know who was driving.

Failure to disclose should also mean a no contest conviction on the alleged offence automatically attracting the full penalty, plus some weighting for failing to disclose.

A friend once got a visit from the police about her car being used in a ram-raid, but she'd sold it a few months previously to some ne'er-do-wells who didn't register the new owner.

And was your friend "fined or prosecuted" for failing to notify the DVLA, as the seller of the vehicle?

No, the police were satisfied with her account of the events (she doesn't look like a typical ram-raider). I'm not entirely sure how or why she was still the registered keeper if she'd followed those rules, but she tends to be quite good at paperwork - possibly some mistake at the DVLA or a false address given to her when they bought the car.

Mrs Mungecrundle was once pulled over by Her Majesty's Constabulary, quite aggresively by all accounts. We had recently purchased a new second hand car, reputable dealer and everything (not from hawkinspeter's dodgy lady friend). Turned out that the number plate had been cloned and used on a vehicle involved in an armed robbery a few days earlier. As Mrs M was 7 months pregnant at the time, they checked the VIN, made some phone calls and she was quickly eliminated from their enquiries.

She's not dodgy, though she lives in Hartcliffe, so has lots of contact with dodgy people.

Exact same thing happened to me, 20 years back.  A ***tard driving the exact same make, model and colour car as mine had cloned my license plate.  All of a sudden, I started receiving fines, fortunately mostly for traffic infractions committed 30 miles from where I live (speeding detected by camera but in Belgium at the time they only took a picture of the rear of the car).  But it was fortunate that this happened because I registered complaints and could prove that at least on a couple of occasions, my car was in a car park, under camera surveillance, when the infractions were committed.  A month later the cops were at my door at 5 am with an order to search the premises, impund my car and arrest me.  My ghost had committed a hit and run a couple of hours earlier and the poor victim died but her friend had noted the license plate.  I explained and they had a forensic team look at my car which was obviously undamaged.    Then they started REALLY looking and  two days later a garage mechanic called the cops.  The guy had again put his license plates on but  the garage saw the damage and had been notified by police what to look out for.  He got 5 years, which imho is nothing.

Belgium's road crash rate is the worst in Western Europe. Enforcement and penalties for driving offences are also much lower than other Western European countries. Belgium has twice the road death rate/head of population of the Netherlands and around 1 1/2 times the road death rate of France or Germany/head of population. There was a notorious incident in which a British tourist was knocked down and killed by a drunk driver in Brussels some years back and the driver was banned for just two weeks.

It would be interesting to learn the nationality of the drivers involved in the crashes in Belgium as Belgiuim is basically a transit route and its motorways worn out and overcrowded.  

It may be another example of the Antwerp effect, a well-known economic phenomenon that is used to correct the misapprehension that Belgium is one of the largest exporters of goods in Europe - it isn't, obviously, its just that they pass through the port.  There's also a Rotterdam effect. 

I'm sure a lot of the drivers involved in crashes in Belgium are not local. But bear in mind that the Netherlands is just next door and also has a similarly high percentage of transit traffic, with half the annual road deaths/head of population. I think the road safety issue in Belgium is deep rooted and has a number of key factors, with the weak enforcement and minimal penalties for offenders being amongst those. There's a historic precedent as drivers in Belgium didn't even need driving licences until the 70s as I recall.

When other Western European countries, France, Spain and Portugal most notably, started getting tough on driving offences about 10 years ago, the casualty rates were reduced enormously. Belgium by comparison did next to nothing so its casualty rate now sticks out like a sore thumb.

Sounds a tad extreme. The current process of nobbling the registered keeper seems fine to me.   
people also forget that claiming to be the driver when you weren't comes under perverting the course of justice and you can get jail time for that.  I almost hope it would have happened in this case. 

Secret_squirrel wrote:

Sounds a tad extreme. The current process of nobbling the registered keeper seems fine to me.   
people also forget that claiming to be the driver when you weren't comes under perverting the course of justice and you can get jail time for that.  I almost hope it would have happened in this case. 

Chris Huhne and Vicky Price being the most notable example of this. They each got 8 months in jail when he got caught speeding and she claimed to be driving.

Vicky Price was often dragged out to give her views on the economic consequences of Brexit.  The conviction for lying and jail time hasn't seemed to have affected her career very much.

I guess it is, but it is also entirely voluntary! Neither of them is obliged to play the game.

If there are only two candidates for who was driving the car, then both must know who it was. The present system gives an incentive not to disclose when the perpetrator stands to be disqualified and the 'accomplice' has points to spare on their licence, leaving a dangerous driver on the road. In that situation, hitting both means they both get their just deserts, even if only they know who played which part.

Falsely claiming you were the driver (to protect the other) is another matter, already dealt with.

It would be a legal fiction, though.  I'm on my mother's insurance as a named driver so I can sort her car out if needs be.  I don't live with her, so I can't be sure that she was driving it, if it is seen on the road.  Somebody else may have access to it for all I know. 

They may even have 3rd party cover for other vehicles on their own insurance, therefore they may be driving legally; or legally without insurance.  It may not be with her knowledge, if she happened to be out at the time.

Or it could be a cloned vehicle: the keeper might be able to prove its location at a specific time, but a circumstantially linked named driver could easily have no idea (nor any reasonable expectation to be aware) of an offence.

Yes, all good reasons why it might not be a workable idea. But there has to be some change such that deliberately failing to disclose, or lying, become the worst options. A bit like how claiming to have lost your train ticket lands you with the greatest fare possible, plus the fine.

At some point the calculation has to change for motorists, from "how can I create plausible ignorance" to "I'd bloody make sure I know who is driving the car I bought because the buck will stop with me." Not so different from how gun owners would have to think about their guns.