DVLA and £100 Fixed Penalty: 670,000 motorists prosecuted in the past 3 years.

[Bailiff Advice]

Three years ago changes were made to legislation whereby unless a vehicle is subject to a SORN declaration, they must be insured (even if the car is parked in your garage and never driven).

 

Following the change in law, if a vehicle is not insured and is not registered with a SORN then the vehicle owner faces a £100 Fixed Penalty Notice and the potential for their car to be clamped, seized or destroyed, as well as being subject to a court prosecution and a court fine of up to £1,000

 

This subject is very serious indeed given that every month DVLA send 60,000 letters to vehicle owners and in the past three years (since the change in law) 670,000 vehicle owners have been prosecuted. In fact, according to the following article......6,000 motorists are prosecuted each month and receive a £100 Fixed Penalty.

 

Apart from enquiries regarding fines for using a TV without a licence, these Fixed Penalties are ones that we receive most enquiries about every day.

 

 

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-2851587/Clampdown-uninsured-vehicles-sees-60k-letters-sent-month.html

[Conniff]

67,000 x 100, that enough to pay off the national debt. Time this was mentioned in the newspapers.

[GrumpyToSayTheLeast]

Really, 6.7m to pay off national debt?

Personally, I dont see the issue with this. Pay you car insurance and all is fine. If you are not using it, sorn it. Its not hard and its aimed at those that drive on the roads and fail to insure their motor.

 

And 670,000 over three years. I have seen repeat offenders year in year out for these fines.

 

6000 motorists each month...thats less than 1% of the population. Not really an issue in my book. The other 99% seem to have no issue with it.

[Bailiff Advice]

We have seen so many of these and what happens is that the vehicle owner will receive an initial letter from DVLA stating that according to the Motor Insurance Database the vehicle was recorded as not being insured on a particular date and that to avoid prosecution, the vehicle owner can pay a penalty of £100 which is discounted to £50 if paid within a strict period of time.

 

If the reduced sum of £50 remains unpaid, the penalty will revert to £100 and a 2nd letter is sent by DVLA given the owner a final opportunity to pay the penalty and either insure the vehicle or take if off the road and declaring it as SORN using a V14.

 

The difficulty with these letters is that there is no contact point to discuss the mater and instead, the only number is one for accepting payments. Any enquiries have to be by post only.

 

From the many cases that we have seen the next communication will be a Notice of Fine & Collection Order for £330. This will be broken down as to the Fine of £200, Court Costs of £110 and Victims Surcharge of £20.00.

 

If unpaid or challenged at this stage a Further Steps Notice is issued for the same sum.

 

Many of the cases that we see are referred to the bailiff company; Swift Credit Services and the Notice of Enforcement will be for £405 to include the Compliance Fee of £75. If unpaid within 14 days an enforcement fee of £235 will be added bringing the amount due to £640 !!!!!!

 

On Tuesday a debtor managed with great difficulty to get the court to accept a Statutory Declaration......it was a nightmare.

 

PS: Anyone receiving these notices should pay at the early discounted rate of £50.

[HCEOs]

The DVLA must be one of the most profitable government departments there is.

[brassnecked]

The DVLA must be one of the most profitable government departments there is.

Much of their income is from these spurious fines, spurious as a colleague had one for an uninsured vehicle, he challenged as the vehicle was on SORN, and he had the paper trail.

 

Another issue is MIB is not fit for purpose, so there is opportunity for error with renewals not showing when DVLA send fine, even though vehicle is insured etc.

[Conniff]

Really, 6.7m to pay off national debt?

Personally, I dont see the issue with this. Pay you car insurance and all is fine. If you are not using it, sorn it. Its not hard and its aimed at those that drive on the roads and fail to insure their motor.

 

And 670,000 over three years. I have seen repeat offenders year in year out for these fines.

 

6000 motorists each month...thats less than 1% of the population. Not really an issue in my book. The other 99% seem to have no issue with it.

 

 

What a load of bull. Those who drive without insurance do anyway and without tax, mot and maybe even a license. So that is that theory out the window.

 

 

Oh, and it's not aimed at those that drive without insurance, it is pure and simply to make money.

[brassnecked]

What a load of bull. Those who drive without insurance do anyway and without tax, mot and maybe even a license. So that is that theory out the window.

 

 

Oh, and it's not aimed at those that drive without insurance, it is pure and simply to make money.

Absolutely Conniff

[Bailiff Advice]

 

Oh, and it's not aimed at those that drive without insurance, it is pure and simply to make money.

 

My take on this is that if this procedure is really aimed at punishing vehicle owners who drive without insurance then DVLA would take a far harsher approach. Instead.....as long as the vehicle owners pays the reduced sum of £50 on receipt of the initial letter they do not face any prosecution at all. End of the matter.

 

Therefore.....as far as I can see...this is a very profitable cash cow.

[Conniff]

A cash cow, exactly like all things aimed at motorists, they are an easy target so lets get them.

[Coughdrop]

Three years ago changes were made to legislation whereby unless a vehicle is subject to a SORN declaration, they must be insured (even if the car is parked in your garage and never driven).

 

Following the change in law, if a vehicle is not insured and is not registered with a SORN then the vehicle owner faces a £100 Fixed Penalty Notice and the potential for their car to be clamped, seized or destroyed, as well as being subject to a court prosecution and a court fine of up to £1,000

 

This subject is very serious indeed given that every month DVLA send 60,000 letters to vehicle owners and in the past three years (since the change in law) 670,000 vehicle owners have been prosecuted. In fact, according to the following article......6,000 motorists are prosecuted each month and receive a £100 Fixed Penalty.

 

Apart from enquiries regarding fines for using a TV without a licence, these Fixed Penalties are ones that we receive most enquiries about every day.

 

 

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-2851587/Clampdown-uninsured-vehicles-sees-60k-letters-sent-month.html

 

This is a really interesting post, but the figures don't make sense to me somewhere. If 6000 motorists get a £100 penalty every month, that amounts to an income of some £600000 per month (with £37200 having been spent sending out 60000 letters to owners first class at £0.62 per letter - a healthy profit).

 

However, if the income is £600000 per month, this equates to some £7, 200, 000 each year (£7.2 million per year or £21.6 million over 3 years).

 

The post then states that over the past three years 670000 motorists have been prosecuted which amounts to just £6.7 million over the past three years.

 

Something somewhere must be wrong - possibly my maths!

[Bailiff Advice]

This is a really interesting post, but the figures don't make sense to me somewhere. If 6000 motorists get a £100 penalty every month, that amounts to an income of some £600000 per month (with £37200 having been spent sending out 60000 letters to owners first class at £0.62 per letter - a healthy profit).

 

However, if the income is £600000 per month, this equates to some £7, 200, 000 each year (£7.2 million per year or £21.6 million over 3 years).

 

The post then states that over the past three years 670000 motorists have been prosecuted which amounts to just £6.7 million over the past three years.

 

Something somewhere must be wrong - possibly my maths!

 

Perhaps a lot of the letters are paid at the discounted rate of £50. Also, it is a known fact that DVLA has errors with 'address fields' and this will naturally impact on the reliability on the notices sent.

[josephbloggs]

i wonder if scrapping tax discs is there way of making even more of these fines happen.

 

because if someone forgot to change their details when moving the reminder will go to the old address, at least with a tax disc you could see when it was going to run out

[Coughdrop]

Perhaps a lot of the letters are paid at the discounted rate of £50. Also, it is a known fact that DVLA has errors with 'address fields' and this will naturally impact on the reliability on the notices sent.

 

Yes possibly, though all being paid at £50 would still leave a gap in the figures of £3.9 miliion. This would mean nearly 6.3 million letters going astray. considerably more than are sent in one year (just 720,000 - so over 5 million unexplained letters). I suspect it's two stories relying on different statistics and either way, it's a big cash cow.

 

i wonder if scrapping tax discs is there way of making even more of these fines happen.

 

because if someone forgot to change their details when moving the reminder will go to the old address, at least with a tax disc you could see when it was going to run out

 

Surely as a vehicle cannot be sold with a tax disc now the figure should reduce, as the application for tax to drive the vehicle at all from the point of sale should have the correct address. The real question is, how good and accurate are the computer systems?

 

Will they, for example, be good enough to cope with me taxing my car online using the new keeper supplement, and going through an ANPR tax check on the way home, or the next day? Clearly the computer system needs to operate in real time. Does it?

[brassnecked]

@ Coughdrop If it was a Bank and you withdew money well yes it would reduce the available balance in Real Time and the account updated by close of businessl. As this is DVLA we are discussing it really should be in Real Time, however, it might take some time, hopefully same day. Imho it will always be at least 24 hours out of date, so you could well be ANPRd and fined by the time you got home from the car dealer, or especially a private seller. I base that assumption on the inaccuracy of the MIB database and the fact that can take days for an update to show.

[GrumpyToSayTheLeast]

@ Coughdrop If it was a Bank and you withdew money well yes it would reduce the available balance in Real Time and the account updated by close of businessl. As this is DVLA we are discussing it really should be in Real Time, however, it might take some time, hopefully same day. Imho it will always be at least 24 hours out of date, so you could well be ANPRd and fined by the time you got home from the car dealer, or especially a private seller. I base that assumption on the inaccuracy of the MIB database and the fact that can take days for an update to show.

 

 

 

 

At which point, if you are summonsed, you take relevant proof in with you and dine. Like the comment about where his colleague was summonsed. Took proof in and done.

 

Maybe it is a cash cow, maybe its to raise funds by fining the uninsured so the general populace dont have to fork out for more up to date and quicker systems.

 

Personally, I have never been done for having no insurance, so I'm not concerned. As far as I'm concerned, this is the right way to go about it until a better system is found.

 

And yes, £50 50% offer is low but its designed to hurt the pocket a little and free up the court time. That said, if its a person that is uninsured to save a penny and they realise that by paying the fine they have been very very lucky, maybe they will insure in future saving me hundreds on my car insurances. I have to pay for every loser that fails to insure their car and then crashes. I am perfectly capable of looking at my calendar to determine when my tax/mot/insurance is due, and frankly, of someone cant do that, then tough.

 

It is a ball ache that someone just having bought a car could be hit by anpr within the first 24hrs or so and dvla needs a process in place where proof can be seen first. So a letter going out suggesting they have been seen without insurance and if this is wrong, please send in proof or summons will follow.

[brassnecked]

Coughdrop this is the DVLA here, they just want the money, they don't give a damn about whether no offence was committed, their systems are so screwed up anyway, so mistakes will happen a lot more frequently than they would like to admit. maybe they will be on Watchdog again next series when this blows up on them like the SORN debacle did.

 

As to take proof in and done, colleague had to take time off work attend court to present proof and Not Guilty plea, so lost earnings etc, DVLA would not accept proof and withdraw summons. Thankfully the magistrates accepted the defence and found not guilty, how many innocents roll over and pay I wonder?