Sudden Insurance

There are several myths floating around, particularly on the Internet, about ways that you can avoid being charged if accused of committing a traffic offence. However the fact is that the vast majority of them are simply not true.

Possibly the most frequently heard claim is that if a police officer fills in some information incorrectly on a traffic offence ticket, like a speeding ticket, then the ticket is void. This, as with most of these theories, is not true.

This is a false belief because traffic offence tickets are not official evidence. They are simply summaries of the incident for referral. If you were to challenge the validity of the ticket because the officer had made an error on it, then all that would happen is; the officer in question will have to write up a detailed report which he will not make a mistake on and a court summons will be sent to you.

If you challenge the actual accusation however, i.e. you dont believe you did commit the offence they are accusing you of, then a mistake on a ticket could be put forward as evidence that the officers work is inaccurate and unreliable.

If however the only defence you have is that the officer made a mistake on the ticket, then this doesnt really warrant any kind of defence and you will probably be charged.

Another theory that has come up is that when the police ask you who was driving the vehicle at the time of the offence, you dont have to tell them because that would violate human rights. People think that if you are the registered keeper then you dont have to answer the question who was driving it as your human rights allow you to withhold this information.

In fact, this is simply not true. Human have been altered so that you do have to divulge who was driving at the time of offence or you face six points on your licence and a substantial fine. This is because of the importance of road safety.

Another very common mistake that drivers make is that when they buy a new car, they are covered from the insurance on their old vehicle to drive any car owned by someone else with their permission, and as they havent made themselves the registered keeper of the vehicle yet, therefore it still officially belongs to someone else, therefore they are insured.

This is not true either, if money has exchanged hands for the car then as far as a court of law is concerned the car belongs to you, and if you have not transferred the insurance over from your old vehicle, then you are not insured on the new one, and therefore driving illegally.