Appeal driving Ban?

jaybird

Has anyone had any experience of appealing a driving ban, sucessfully or otherwise? I am aware that mandatory bans are not reducable on appeal, but what about non-mandatory?
My husband was given a large fine and was banned for 6 months for driving without insurance. It was an honest mistake, he thought he was insured but wasn't. It was his first offence of any kind, and as his job is driving he will lose his job and we may lose our house. This seems unduly harsh by any standards.
Does anyone know what the chances are on appeal, how long it may take etc? Do you get to keep your licence until the appeal is heard? HOw much should it cost in solicitors fees?
Any and all advice would be gratefully appreciated.
Thank You.

Bluetonic

jaybird wrote:

It was an honest mistake, he thought he was insured but wasn't.

Do you want to elaborate on this a bit further?

I always find it hard to believe people that someone could think they were insured when in fact they weren't, especially in this case when driving is his job.

dermot_sheehan

You can appeal for a rehearing in the circuit court, it would cost a fair bit more as counsel would be retained I believe.

You can ask the circuit judge to suspend the implementation of the driving ban until trial at a preliminary hearing.

shltter

Bluetonic wrote:

Do you want to elaborate on this a bit further?

I always find it hard to believe people that someone could think they were insured when in fact they weren't, especially in this case when driving is his job.

Well I know someone a few years ago who bought insurance through a broker but the broker did not pay the insurance company when he had an accident he discovered he had no insurance.
The broker had gone out of business.

Bluetonic

shltter wrote:

Well I know someone a few years ago who bought insurance through a broker but the broker did not pay the insurance company when he had an accident he discovered he had no insurance.
The broker had gone out of business.

How long did he wait to get his insurance disk and certificate?

jaybird

He had insurance on his own motorbike which broke down one day. He borrowed his brothers moped and was told by a friend who works in insurance that his own policy would cover him as long as the moped was a lower engine size and he had permission to drive it.
The friend was wrong and he was not covered. He should have checked his own policy, but he only borrowed it for a few hours and honestly thought he was fine.

Bluetonic

Sounds a bit harsh to be honest.

MrPudding

Yeah. Sounds very harsh indeed.

MrP

markf909

The punishment sounds so harsh.
One of my mates was in the exact same scenario, he was test driving a moped he was interested in buying around an estate knowingly without insurance.
He was brought to court and fined but that's all.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

jaybird

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Did you not read the thread at all? He has an insurance disk on his own motorbike. His brothers bike has an insurance disk. So he had 2 disks. The problem being that his disk did not cover him on the other bike, and neither did the insurance on the brothers bike. So he wasn't insured, unbeknownst to him.
Do you follow now?

muletide

If we want to stamp out road deaths in this country we need to start a zero tolerance policy to all offences including driving without insurance. I hope this incident is an indicaator that the courts/Gardai are starting to crack down on all offences.

I am sorry for your brother but when it comes to things like this you should never assume you are covered or take the word of a so called "expert"

Take the punishment and dont drag it out any further you will only clog up the courts

jaybird

muletide wrote:

If we want to stamp out road deaths in this country we need to start a zero tolerance policy to all offences including driving without insurance. I hope this incident is an indicaator that the courts/Gardai are starting to crack down on all offences.

I am sorry for your brother but when it comes to things like this you should never assume you are covered or take the word of a so called "expert"

Take the punishment and dont drag it out any further you will only clog up the courts

So you think its fair for a man to lose his job and his house because of a simple mistake, when you get 2 points and 80 euro fine for speeding (which I would consider much worse)?
I'm all in for punishing those who drink and drive or speed or drive dangerously, but Zero tolerance means no grey areas. Your life must be very easy if everythings black and white.
I don't mean to be rude but does anyone have any actual advice rather than judgement ?

muletide

jaybird wrote:

So you think its fair for a man to lose his job and his house because of a simple mistake, when you get 2 points and 80 euro fine for speeding (which I would consider much worse)?
I'm all in for punishing those who drink and drive or speed or drive dangerously, but Zero tolerance means no grey areas. Your life must be very easy if everythings black and white.
I don't mean to be rude but does anyone have any actual advice rather than judgement ?

No its not fair, but if we want to sort out our roads alot of people will have to be put out.

You seem very Black and White also, as you refuse to see any blame on your brothers part

Heres your advice; your appeal will not work as you cannot justify his actions on the words of a "friend". If I get caught tomorrow with no insurance I can just tell the Guard I have a friend in insurance who told me I would be ok (before you know it everyone will be at it).
So save your brother and more importantly the courts all the hassle and take the punishment and learn a lesson

Sorry if my words seem harsh but thats the way the judge will speak to him when he hears the lame friend excuse

Calina

I have to say that harsh and all as this may sound, when it comes to driving insurance, the only party whose words you should take is that of your own insurance company. Advice of friends who work in the industry is just not the same.

My default position is to call my insurance company if I am driving a car other than my own in this country. I would never, ever, rely on the word of a third party on this, regardless of their profile. They are not a party to your insurance contract. It is far, far, far too important.

You can say it was an honest mistake. But to my mind it wasn't. He didn't check with his own insurance company and that is his fault.

Driving without insurance is right up there with drink-driving as a bad, bad, bad thing to do in my view. It is the responsibility of a driver to check that his insurance covers him for whatever driving he is doing. He didn't actually do that. He *thought* he was okay because his friend said so. The fact that it was only for a few hours does not negate this.

I realise that this is a hassle for you, but one of the things that irks me about this country is the tendency for people to plead hard cases, work, job, please don't ban me when they've done something which is totally wrong as far as driving legislation is concerned. We need to stamp it out, and unfortunately, the first few people who fall victim to the law actually being applied properly are going to feel miffed given that the country has been a bit fluffy on that front in the past.

अधिनायक

Tell me he had a solicitor and a barrister in court? A friend of mine was done for this and his barrister showed that the law allowed for the judge to drop the driving ban in special cases - the special case made was that he was unaware he was insured, had been insured up to that point and could lose his job as a consequence. The judge accepted and did not impose a ban.

No insurance can result in a custodial sentence so it's crazy to approach a court without representation.

jaybird

I'd just like to say that the post was about my husband. I'm not saying that he wasn't at fault: he totally was. He was a total fool and he feels terrible. I'm not arguing that he should be let off or that he wasn't at fault.
My point is just that as a first offence the sentance is pretty harsh. He got the exact same punishment as the next guy in the queue at the court: he had been driving a car for over a year with no insurance.
Neither of us have ever been in trouble with the law for anything. This ban means he will lose his job, and as we are in the process of buying our first house we will probably lose that too, our last chance to own our own home as we willl lose our deposit which took us years to save. We have ayoung child who will have to go without as we will barely be able to afford our over priced rented house.
My husband didn't hurt anybody. He's never been involved in a an accident in ten years of driving. He was stupid, but he was driving without insurance for approx 6 hours: For this our lives should be wrecked ?
Maybe I'm wrong and we really do deserve that. YOu decide

sdanseo

It's ridiculously harsh. People are getting away, as you said, with driving for a year uninsured before being caught - ive heard of several similar cases - yet someone who genuinely thinks they are insured gets the same punishment.

Madness. More guards with flashing lights and speed guns to stop those joyriders who speed is what's needed to curb road crime. Not punishing people who make simple mistakes.

I hope you manage to appeal this, it's ridiculous.

shltter

Bluetonic wrote:

How long did he wait to get his insurance disk and certificate?

I cant remember all the details but AFAIk he had a disk and certificate issued by the insurance company but the broker did not pay the insurance company so they meant nothing.The accident happened shortly after he took out the insurance.
Kind of like people who buy their insurance in installments if you dont keep up the payments the disk and certificate are worthless.

weehamster

jaybird wrote:

I'd just like to say that the post was about my husband. I'm not saying that he wasn't at fault: he totally was. He was a total fool and he feels terrible. I'm not arguing that he should be let off or that he wasn't at fault.
My point is just that as a first offence the sentance is pretty harsh. He got the exact same punishment as the next guy in the queue at the court: he had been driving a car for over a year with no insurance.
Neither of us have ever been in trouble with the law for anything. This ban means he will lose his job, and as we are in the process of buying our first house we will probably lose that too, our last chance to own our own home as we willl lose our deposit which took us years to save. We have ayoung child who will have to go without as we will barely be able to afford our over priced rented house.
My husband didn't hurt anybody. He's never been involved in a an accident in ten years of driving. He was stupid, but he was driving without insurance for approx 6 hours: For this our lives should be wrecked ?
Maybe I'm wrong and we really do deserve that. YOu decide

I had been a motor insurance underwriter for 7 years and I have heard this story before and may very similar. I have also come across many policyholders lying, trying to get away with something they did wrong. So forgive me if don’t take your story at face value. It is just simply what I and many other underwriters have experienced. Judges would also have experienced this many times before.

Insurance is a very serious thing and not something that should be taken lightly, like what your husband did by asking "a friend who works in insurance".

He should have asked his Broker or the Insurance Company who legally are the only ones who can tell him what is and what is not covered under his policy.

You can try to appeal but I am 99% certain the judge will do nothing. So I wouldn’t even bother trying to appeal as it will cost you a small fortune in legal fees.

So the only chance I can see in any way for you to salvage something is to take a civil action case against this "friend who works in insurance" for giving that incorrect advice. But even then, I can’t see you winning as the Judge would probably just simply ask your husband, why didn’t he contact his broker or Insurance Company in the first place?

There is also the very important matter of what if your husband had killed a third party in an accident, while not insured. What then?

Many people in this country have either no or very little respect for Law. And this seems to be another case of that. He used a vehicle which wasn’t insured. It is a simple as that and it is totally irrelevant regarding other similar cases up in court.

I’m sorry, but loosing his job and the house has nothing to do in anyway with the law regarding insurance. And if what you say did happen, then the only sympathy I have if for you, as you would have been innocent party in all this.

अधिनायक

weehamster wrote:

Insurance is a very serious thing and not something that should be taken lightly...There is also the very important matter of what if your husband had killed a third party in an accident, while not insured. What then?

Well then the person would be dead, insured or uninsured. I think the dead person's family could obtain compensation from MIBI which is paid from a levy on insurance companies and ultimately paid for by insured drivers.

Driving without insurance is a financial crime rather than a threat to the safety of others like speeding or drunk driving. Let's not get carried away.

Triangle

Also, if you can prove that you had insurance on your own bike - had a history of insurance, then the punishment far outweighs the crime.

Sorry OP i don't know how you'd go about getting this lifted.

weehamster

अधिनाय&#2325 wrote:

Well then the person would be dead, insured or uninsured. I think the dead person's family could obtain compensation from MIBI which is paid from a levy on insurance companies and ultimately paid for by insured drivers.

Driving without insurance is a financial crime rather than a threat to the safety of others like speeding or drunk driving. Let's not get carried away.

Nice bit of selective editing there when quoting me.

Well he didn’t take it seriously and got banned and rightly so. So I will advise you and anyone else to take this matter seriously.

As regard this being a financial crime and not a safety one. I think you’re missing the whole point of motor insurance which is to protect other road users (the third party) and not the driver of the insured vehicle. Insurance helps filter out people who are or have been banned or had convictions etc. These people are deemed a higher risk i.e. more dangerous to other road users. This is a safety factor.

As regards to the levy are you referring to the infamous 2% which was originally set up to due to the collapse of the old ICI Company and has nothing to do with the MIBI. This levy believe it or not goes straight to the Revenue Commission. Or are you referring to other levy. The Insurance companies who are members of MIBI pay a separate so called 'levy'. The cost of this is then passed on to every other policyholder in the form for higher premiums. So the more uninsured claims there are the higher premiums will be for all.

So this levy actually does nothing for the fund. In fact it should be scrapped altogether to help drivers and reduce the high costs of motor insurance.

Finally, as I said before, this story may not be totally true. So I wouldn't be so quick to defend this if I was you. I'm sorry to say, the experience of myself and others working as a motor insurance underwriter teaches you to think differently. People aren’t as honest as you think are. And Judges would have far more experience of this, which is why did he got the ban. In fact he was lucky not to be banned for a year, fined €2,500 and imprisoned up to 6 months which is the recommended punishment. So believe it or not, the Judge was lenient due to their many experiences of this type of case.

dam099

Triangle wrote:

Also, if you can prove that you had insurance on your own bike - had a history of insurance, then the punishment far outweighs the crime.

There seems to be quite a difference of opinion here but this to me seems to be a very pertinent point.

Going by some additional info you give over on the AAM board since your husband did not get much chance to speak in his own defence so if your husband can prove to the appeals court that he has a history of insurance on his bike and also that his brother has a history of insurance on the moped then it should help to demonstrate to a judge that this was a genuine misunderstanding and not someone who habitually drives without insurance. Whether that will help mitigate the sentence I don't know but its got to have a better chance than the first hearing where no real defence was put up. I think the previous poster who is 99% certain an appeal is pointless is overstating the case but only a good solicitor can truly advise you.

As you have been told you really need a solicitors to advise and if you decide to appeal to represent you. I'm not sure whether you will also need a barrister at this level but your solicitor will be able to advise on this.

dam099

अधिनाय&#2325 wrote:

Tell me he had a solicitor and a barrister in court? A friend of mine was done for this and his barrister showed that the law allowed for the judge to drop the driving ban in special cases - the special case made was that he was unaware he was insured, had been insured up to that point and could lose his job as a consequence. The judge accepted and did not impose a ban.

No insurance can result in a custodial sentence so it's crazy to approach a court without representation.

If this was a district court case a barrister would be overkill. A good solicitor should have been able to deal with it and might even be all thats needed for an appeal unless your solicitor thinks a barrister is warranted. I would agree that having a solicitor in the first instance would have been enormously beneficial and might very well have avoided the ban in the first place.

अधिनायक

weehamster wrote:

As regard this being a financial crime and not a safety one. I think you’re missing the whole point of motor insurance which is to protect other road users (the third party) and not the driver of the insured vehicle. Insurance helps filter out people who are or have been banned or had convictions etc. These people are deemed a higher risk i.e. more dangerous to other road users. This is a safety factor.

The one reason car insurance is mandatory is to prevent injured parties in road accidents from suffering financial loss as a result of the inability of a guilty driver to meet the costs of a civil claim. To the extent that some high risk drivers are prevented from driving due to high premiums, insurance does provide some safety protection to society but not in the case of an insurable driver as we can assume this person was.

The vast majority of drivers pay their money and can then pretend that something different will happen when they maim or kill someone because they are insured. The question you asked is what would happen if he killed someone while uninsured and the answer is that the person would be dead.

So this levy actually does nothing for the fund. In fact it should be scrapped altogether to help drivers and reduce the high costs of motor insurance.

I never mentioned the revenue levy. A levy is paid by members of MIBI to the MIBI fund.

Finally, as I said before, this story may not be totally true. So I wouldn't be so quick to defend this if I was you.

I didn't defend him, I was attacking your (commonly held) notion that having insurance somehow mitigates the situation where you kill another person while driving.

Not paying insurance when you are an insurable risk, is equivalent to theft from the insurance industry. The amount of the theft is the amount of the premium, in this case the cost of being insured for one day on a moped (if we are to believe the story); so maybe €2. There is no comparison between this crime and drunk driving or speeding that directly endanger the life and health of others.

I was talking to a barrister friend this evening who had successfully appealed a consequential driving disqualification in the circuit court today. The appeal was taken as an automatic procedure and no specific point of law was raised, the new judge just heard the case again. It was done on free legal aid so I've no idea what the costs would be.

On the one occasion I had to appear in the district court I hired a barrister, even though it seems like overkill, to avoid the situation that jaybird's husband finds himself in.

popebenny16

I dont know the ins and outs of the o/ps situation but from a legal point of view the disqualification for driving without insurance is mandatory but for the first offence if a special reason can be shown as to why the person was driving without insurance then the Judge has a discretion not to disqualify.

If your husband has appealed the case in the Circuit Court is a hearing de novo and if he has got his appeal in within the 14 days the disqualification will be held on hold pending the determination of the appeal.

You cannot get legal aid for these cases they are not criminal cases, Road Traffic Offences are a seperate category.

Get a Solicitor and he will choose apprpriate counsel for the Circuit Hearing.

pycrow

lifes hard knocks just keep coming weather you like it or not!! this country still uses 1700 laws which dont work in the 20th cen.

darcy.jonny

ok this happened to me in 2004 .

i was working for company x lets say .

i had my own transport and own insurance , the gearbox went in my car and couldnt get it fixed at the time as i hadnt the money to replace it so my boss said i could drive one of the company vans ......... at the same time he was putting another employee on the insurance policy .

that day after all was supposed to be sorted out i was stoped by the guards and found out i had no insurance .

what had happened was the insurance add on was done over the phone and my surname was very simular to the other employees Denby and the insurance company put his name on ok but put me in as jonathan denby .

got a solisicitor etc. and got someone from axa insurance to appear in court ........................... the judge found the whole thing humorous as trew out the charges .. but he did tell me that i could have easily have been baned even giving the current circumstances .............

lesson i lerned was dont ever take anyone word on thing like this and dont ever drive any car etc without documental evidence that i am insured dosnt have to be a disc etc just a cover letter will do ............ driving is to important to lose over silly mistakes and taking peoples word for it

i will say though ild appeal the ban .... if what ur saying is true then the punnishment is way to harsh

January

jaybird wrote: »

Has anyone had any experience of appealing a driving ban, sucessfully or otherwise? I am aware that mandatory bans are not reducable on appeal, but what about non-mandatory?
My husband was given a large fine and was banned for 6 months for driving without insurance. It was an honest mistake, he thought he was insured but wasn't. It was his first offence of any kind, and as his job is driving he will lose his job and we may lose our house. This seems unduly harsh by any standards.
Does anyone know what the chances are on appeal, how long it may take etc? Do you get to keep your licence until the appeal is heard? HOw much should it cost in solicitors fees?
Any and all advice would be gratefully appreciated.
Thank You.

This thread is over three months old and shouldn't have been bumped but how and ever...

I used to work in insurance and various people used to ask my opinion on whether they should drive this car or do this and that. I'd give my opinion and then I'd add "but I'd ring you insurance company because I could be giving you false info" even if their policy was held with the same company as mine.

Just please be aware in the future that the only person that could have told your partner what to do was his insurance company as the phone call would have been recorded and easily traced if something like that happened.

Calina

Zombie thread returning to the grave.