I'd like to point out that if he travelled through France, and had been stopped he'd have had pretty much the same treatment. The French are clamping down hard on uninsured cars and will confiscate them too. They'll either then be sold or crushed depending on their market value. They recently impounded something like 50 uninsured Jersey orwned cars which were parked in the long term car park at Dinard airport and were being used by Jersey residents when they flew over. Bye bye cars.

Also Marc would probably have had a harder time as he would have had to communicate in French.

Kuno2 - I guess you can answer this, did Marc's journey take him through any other European countries or did he ship directly from Africa to the UK?

So as has been said over and over the moral of the story is check the rules of the road before you drive in the country, ignorance is and never has been any defence under law.

Oh and Fastship I'd suggest you emigrate, mate, I did.

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But this story must have happened centuries ago; yes?


Oh, yes, definitely! Although some people may doubt that those from NZ speak English ;-)

As far as I know, he crossed GREECE, SWITZERLAND (ooooooooooooook, that is not really Europe) and GERMANY as well.

Correct. Nothing to be added.

It is WELL in hand

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But please check out about insurance first!

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Thought that all those sad stories about UK are only some sort of bad propaganda in the yellow press. Is it really like this?

Yes, they are written by Chinese Government agents in revenge to the sabotage of the Olympic Games.

No -The Uk is great.

I love it! Maybe I am having a 'half full' day though

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Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009

So can I summarise this so far?

Marc is a fool and an idiot (or not).
Fastship hates the UK and all who sail in her.
Fastship doesn't know the full facts about the Brazilian incident.
The British Police are heavy handed and lazy gits.
The UK Customs and Immigration don't do their job properly.
There are great wadges of information out there on the legal requirements for a vehicle in the UK.
Opinions are split as to whether you should be able to get away with breaking the law of that land, or not.
Jersey residents are too rich anyway.

Ok so far?
Sorry for the interruption, pray continue.

For my pennies worth - after a very good mate of mine was killed on his bike by an uninsured and disqualified driver, causing his wife and newly born kid untold distress, I applaud the actions of the fine (unarmed, generally helpful, polite and uncorrupt) Police.

Great stuff! I didn't realise there is a slightest chance for such a trivial subject to make people come out of the woodwork and offer opinion and advice. The more so as it has nothing to do with Sahara travel.

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Roman (UK)

Oh yes, it has very mucho to do:
it seems that the guy was in the Sahara before going to the UK.
I think that that is more than enough.

BTW, what about a thread about Iran's nuclear programme?
The Touareg conflict has lots to do with the uranium mines in Arlit.

Please moderators, move this to another section of the forum (please don't delete it).

There are two sorts of country as far as insurance is concerned - those where it is a legal requirement and where failure to comply with this requirement is dealt with harshly and those where insurance is for all intents and purposes meaningless.

The UK, Europe, and North America certainly falls into the first category. (Arguably the UK economy is based on crappy service industries like insurance). Not to drive with insurance is therefore very unwise and I don't think anyone really has much sympathy for Marc. I must admit that I have ridden and driven in countries where insurance is less of an issue but that is something you weigh up before you go and pay the consequences for if you get caught without it.

Sadly insurance premiums are not going up as a result of uninsured people having accidents. They are going up because as soon as the garage knows it is an "insurance job" it doubles the quote and that anyone involved knows that "where there's blame there's a claim" and comes down with life threatening whiplash injuries that take the lawyers years to sort out. I'm the most cynical skeptic as far as insurance is concerned.

For most people, the police in the UK tend to be quite fair compared to say the US and the gestapo. However I must say that crushing seized cars is outrageous - "put it on e-bay" (to quote a certain A Hitler on that great You Tube vid that's doing the rounds) and give the money to a good cause. On the whole you get away with a lot in the UK because the police are busy filling in forms and laws don't really get enforced. In fact the ones that do tend to be easy pickings rather than the more serious ones and for this reason many people are disillusioned with the police forces in the UK.

Most amusing thread this one............

Really really enjoyed this thread... couldn't help myself.... it's like an illness or something... I have to reply!

Police - UK Police - what a really really fine bunch of men. Seriously, what a fantastic body of people who do such a tuff job. You meet the occasional arse - but you get that everywhere. Obviously being bikers we're slightly more likely to be pulled by her majesties finest - and in all those times I've never been treated with anything but respect and patience - even when pulled over for being really rather silly... obviously they respectfully and patiently give me a ticket and some points..... but that was my own fault... how could I possibly turn around and blame the police for enforcing the law of the land?

The last time I got pulled was for turing down a 'no left turn' street - I didn't see the sign but I did it right in front of a police car - unsurprisingly got pulled over and given a penalty ticket for £30 - wanted to argue - didn't see the sign - walked back up the street and I swear it's the biggest sign you've ever seen - how I missed it I'll never know... but does that mean I shouldn't have to pay the fine? Is it right that we start to allow the police force the discretion on wether or not someone has broken the law? Isn't that starting to put the judiciary and police force into the same body? I find that rather disturbing.

And bringing the tube shooting into this thread is really rather silly - what on earth has it got to do with driving without insurance? However - I know I know - I'm going to respond.

I'm not going to get into the details of that incident as I believe you mentioned it as a demonstration of how bad our police are. What I could do here now is go through a list of how fantastic the British police are - I suspect I'll find a lot more of those than you'll find shooting of innocent people.

In fact let's take the metropolitan area of London for a moment. Last year armed officers in our capital drew weapons less than 30 times. 30 times in the whole year. They were discharged 5 times. 3 of those resulted in death. These are hardly the statistics of a corrupt and dangerous police force. I'm not saying what happened on the tube was 'right' I am agreeing it was totally wrong - what I am saying is it's not indicative of the British police force - more so of the British special services - and frankly I don't have the information on how many times MI5 and the other special services dew weapons in this country and having had no dealings with them I certainly can't comment on how 'corrupt' they are - my own feelings? I doubt it very much.

Annnnyway. (home run now)

If I'm traveling anywhere the most basic research I do is what I 'need' in order to travel in the country. When entering Russia what documents do I need? When I cross the border into Morocco what is expected?

Then I weigh up the 'value' of each of those things against the consequences of not having them. So my Russian visa - very very important consequence of not having it? Not getting in the country.

Russian Insurance? Value is small, consequences if I don't have it? It'll cost me more at the road side to deal with than at the border - may as well get it.

EU countries... Insurance? Legal requirement. Consequences if I don't have it? Car will get crushed. Guess what I'm going to do?

I've not met Marc, I've not got the whole story, and it wouldn't be fair for me to comment on his individual circumstances - perhaps the whole thing played out as stated in the first post - perhaps the first post was written from a slightly biased point of view - perhaps the police were beastly. Who knows for sure?

One thing I am sure of, if Marc comes back to an EU country again, he'll make damn sure he has a relevant license and insurance.

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