Driving Without Your Temporary Insurance

According to "The Road Traffic Act 1988", if you drive with no insurance it is described in S143 as "an offence to use (or permit to be used) a motor vehicle on a road or public place when there is not in force in relation to the use of the vehicle such a policy of insurance is respect of third party risks as complies with the Road Traffic Act". This broad explanation includes equally the vehicle owner along with driver/temporary driver. Besides, it also covers people not driving since "use" is a word employed also for parked/stationary vehicles, as well as ones in need of fixing found in some public location or road.

In cases of employees driving company cars with no legal insurance certificate, it can be the employers who get impeached. Such cases consider employer and employee together or alone as making use of the car within "No Insurance" definition. It comprises of operation, management and monitoring of the car. In fact, if you loan your own car to someone else with no insurance, you can end up accused below S143 for driving without temporary insurance. Nevertheless, vehicle owners can claim not guilty, as they had no hold over the cars and were no longer using it as per definition. Always see to it that individuals using your cars have insurance to avoid such situations. The unqualified character of the misdemeanour does not pertain to employees making use of employers' cars and it can be argued that the employees had considered that they were covered by employers.

Driving without a Motor Vehicle Insurance is considered an unqualified crime. So it is not possible to mount a defence on the grounds of ignorance regarding the absence of temporary one day car insurance. To establish such wrongdoing the prosecution needs to display usage, which involve cars parked in public locations and roads as well. After the prosecution has concluded the fundamental essentials about "No Insurance," it then becomes the duty of the defendant to prove that when driving, he/she had insurance. Singular rationale can be proposed, subsequent to guilty verdict to make the court not enforce penalty points or prohibition to driving when occasions lead to such unusual grounds. It has been made clear in the case law.

Punishment for Motor Crimes Including Possessing No Insurance
The table shows some of the major motor crimes and acts as a handbook of how courts deal these crimes with punishments like fines, bans, points and at times even prison terms.

Offence	Minimum	Maximum
Hazardous driving	Enforced ban of 12 months	6 months imprisonment at Magistrates Court or a couple of years imprisonment at Crown Court
Instigating death through unsafe driving	Enforced ban of 12 months	Maximum 14 years in prison
Bring about death beneath the influence	Enforced ban of 12 months	Maximum 10 years in prison
Driving beneath the influence	Enforced ban of 12 months	Maximum 6 months in prison
Beneath the influence when responsible for a vehicle	Maximum £5000 fine/3-11 points	discretionary ban/ 6 months in prison
Inability to offer specimen	Enforced ban of 12 months
Unable to give the road-side breath test	4 points	Maximum £1000 fine
Driving with no insurance	6-8 points	Maximum £5000 fine
Neither stopping to yield information nor reporting to police	5-10 points	Maximum £5000 fine
Speeding	3-6 points	Maximum £1000 fine/discretionary ban
Sloppy driving	3-9 points	Maximum £2500- £5000 fine

In case of every sanctioned crime, ban is optional except when your total in license exceeds 12 points. Then your ban will be enforced but for your winning argument of extreme adversity.