to have thought the police might be vaguely interested in this?

[EagleRay]

A few weeks ago, I was in a lane of stationary traffic and my car was clipped by a passing van, knocking part of the wing mirror off which then was run over by another car.

Van man stops and pulls over but was stroppy and accusing towards me (I was stationary and in the lane I wanted to be in but he claimed I was pulling out into his lane etc etc). I asked him about insurance and he got stroppier but supplied his name and address and I gave him mine.

Turns out he wasn't insured, and refuses to answer the calls/correspondence from my ins co. He's very likely to be driving all day every day as he's a builder (company name was all over the van).

Anyway, I popped into my local police station with his details and was totally given the brush off. Provided his name but they didn't take note of it and said the insurance company would deal with it. Felt a bit like I was being accused of telling tales!

I expect he's still driving around uninsured and I've got a fairly hefty bill to repair my car now. If I wasn't insured, I would expect to get into trouble - so how come it's not seen as a big deal?

S143 of the road traffic act 1988makes it an offence for a vehicle to be on a public road with having at least third party insurance. I'm quite surprised this wasn't acted upon. Very easy case. S172 the driver, note a couple of statements and bobs your auntie, easy road traffic case!! Perhaps it's different in England, certainly would be acted upon in Scotland, an offence is an offence....

Find out the number for the Police Commissioner (is that what they are called?) and contact them, they are elected and will probably want to be seen to be on the side of their electorate. Quote the relevant act and pass on details of the date, time, name and collar number of the person you reported it to.

They may have said what they said to you as they may have to actually catch the driver in the act which would involve watching him, but if you make a report/complaint at least this would be explained/confirmed.

if you have insurance on one vehicle, then you are insured third party to drive anybody
else's vehicle. so you do not know at all that he had no insurance which might be why the police are not interested

No such blanket claims can be made. There are policies that do not allow that. You have to check.

Police stations are being closed down to save money. The work still needs to be done, they just expect police officers instead of police staff to carry out that work. It annoys me when people make comments like that. 75% of people doing the role I was at the front desk lost their jobs in the space of 4 years with redundancy.

DVLA now send fines to every vehicle that does not have insurance if it is not SORN'd.

Isn't it likely that someone who drives without insurance is probably not bothered about tax but more crucially an MOT? The logical extension of this is that he may not have appropriate insurance etc for his building work, either.

Given that the police would prosecute for no insurance if they pulled you over for something else, I'm a bit surprised at the complete lack of interest.

I'd report the driver to DVLA and also report his company to Trading Standards in case they want to make a note of it or follow up.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar12/police-budget-cuts-britains-top-
Will this link work? I haven't attempted one before.
The headline is the Met Police Comissioner saying that the police are beginning to have to pick and choose what they deal with and it's going to get worse.

Nope! Doesn't work, sorry.

Sorry to take over OP but this stuff worries me and sometimes I feel like no one else is noticing.

Tom Winsor, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary gave an interview in January and said that while any crime reported to the police had to be taken seriously, there were some crimes that were "more serious than others".

"Nobody would argue that shoplifting is as serious as a violent assault and therefore the police need to look for the crimes that matter most to people, that do greatest harms to communities - serious and organised crime, drugs, violent offences, the grooming and sexual exploitation of children," he said.

We are just going to be left to sort low level stuff like uninsured drivers out ourselves.

In my force our budget was cut by about 600 million . In the next five years , we're expecting to have it cut by the same again . The two biggest costs to us, is wages and property . So guess where the money is being cut ? 63 police stations closed and sold off to property developers. Civil staff numbers have been decimated. I have heard an estimation that 60 percent of them may get made redundant . So that will be your scenes of crime officers . Finance dept is effectively gone. Property stores - including all the criminal exhibits , halved. Criminal justice unit staff (including traffic offences and rtc's ) doing three times their workload because half have gone and most of the rest want to resign. Enquiries officers - those that would investigate your accident, used to be officers on light duties due to injury - invalided out , early retirement, and not replaced. And that's why its not that police aren't interested, they have no one available to deal with it . If we come across a vehicle with no insurance whilst on patrol, we immediately seize it , and impound it until the owner can collect it with proof of insurance . Plus a fine . And storage costs . There are simply not enough of us to do all that is expected of us . Every day I do the job of ambulance crews , social workers,, mental health staff , just to name three off the top of my head . And I don't begrudge it, because these resources have been cut as badly as us. But no other agency does my job. So consequently we have a new priority every other week. And decisions have to be made which are more important .

Sky News aired an investigation this morning that established that the police spend 20% of their time dealing with people with mental health problems, largely because mental health services have been cut and there is no one else left to pick up the pieces.

if you have insurance on one vehicle, then you are insured third party to drive anybody
else's vehicle. so you do not know at all that he had no insurance which might be why the police are not interested

Not true at all. The vehicle you will be driving as a third party MUST be insured already by the owner. You having insurance doesnt mean you can drive any car, the car must have insurance to start with. If you have insurance on one car and then drive a car which has no insurance YOU ARE NOT INSURED unless you are a car dealer who is insured to drive any car. Insurance is normally car based not person based.

The vehicle that hit mine had the driver's name written all over it (he's a builder) which was quite helpful in terms of establishing ownership