An experience with the Constabulary

[chaoticbob]

I had a distressed phone call from my wife the other day - she'd been pulled over by the plod - no insurance on our (rather tatty, but entirely legal I thought) second car. So I drove out (in our other, rather less tatty, main car) to meet them to be told that tatty car would have to be impounded at enormous cost to recover of course. "Well" , I said "I've obviously fouled up somewhere, but what if just call my insurers and get the thing insured instanter, then I could drive it home legally? " Are you in - erm - a position to do that sir?" "Yes, certainly". Some phoning ensued, then "you're not the usual sort people we have to deal with in this situation, get the car back home and present an insurance cert at the cop shop within seven days. I expect it's a clerical error"
Of course I wanted to shout "Rule Breaking!" at the guy - the car was by the letter of the law uninsured, and I should have been penalised perhaps, but to his credit the copper assessed the situation and decided that I was probably OK.

I was pretty impressed by the way it was handled - a pragmatic implementation of the rules.

Rob.
PS Any relevance of this tale to any other thread on this website is entirely coincidental and in your imagination.

 

[acewoodturner]

A few years ago I was driving my van past Police HQ and a traffic car pulled out and stopped me a few hundred yards down the road. Turns out I wasn't insured when they had checked. I phoned my new insurance company and it turns out I had screwed up the dates for my new policy to start the following day and I had cancelled my old one the previous day. I was not insured for one day! Genuine error and they gave me a 200 quid fine and 3 points. They also made sure that I brought my insurance forward a day so I was covered for driving away. No leniency from them apart from not having my van crushed. If it had been normal coppers I might have had the same result as you. These days there are so few coppers around I hate to think how many vehicles are on the road illegally.

 

[doctor Bob]

I had a distressed phone call from my wife the other day - she'd been pulled over by the plod - no insurance on our (rather tatty, but entirely legal I thought) second car. So I drove out (in our other, rather less tatty, main car) to meet them to be told that tatty car would have to be impounded at enormous cost to recover of course. "Well" , I said "I've obviously fouled up somewhere, but what if just call my insurers and get the thing insured instanter, then I could drive it home legally? " Are you in - erm - a position to do that sir?" "Yes, certainly". Some phoning ensued, then "you're not the usual sort people we have to deal with in this situation, get the car back home and present an insurance cert at the cop shop within seven days. I expect it's a clerical error"
Of course I wanted to shout "Rule Breaking!" at the guy - the car was by the letter of the law uninsured, and I should have been penalised perhaps, but to his credit the copper assessed the situation and decided that I was probably OK.

I was pretty impressed by the way it was handled - a pragmatic implementation of the rules.

Rob.
PS Any relevance of this tale to any other thread on this website is entirely coincidental and in your imagination.

Very good fortune, but surely that's not right, is it!!! I've never understood this attitude test, surely everyone should be treated equally. Just for the record I haven't been stopped since I was a teenager, so no axe to grind.

 

[Sideways]

Sensible outcome. He made a mistake, he was given a little flexibility to put it right, all is well and a lesson learnt and shared to say there are some coppers out there with common sense and judgement.

Commiserations on the one day uninsured mistake which would have been far better handled the same way.

 

[finneyb]

Very good fortune, but surely that's not right, is it!!! I've never understood this attitude test, surely everyone should be treated equally. Just for the record I haven't been stopped since I was a teenager, so no axe to grind.

It saves paperwork and therefore time to do more benefical things.
Police need the public's support to police and they recognise this, hence the reasonable attitude to someone who is not their normal clientele.

Brian