Would you report this or mind your own business?

[shadowkitty3]

There is a man who lives in a van in my town. For the last year or so he has been parked in a particular public car park. He is definitely homeless and lives in the van.

Out of curiosity I put the numberplate into the online car tax checker a few months ago. The van is SORN and the MOT expired four years ago.

So he shouldn't be parked there if the vehicle is SORN but I thought, it's none of my business and not up to me to do anything about it.

However, I've now noticed he has been driving the van around on the road. The van had moved to another part of the car park this week, and another time I saw it actually driving on the main road in the town.

This is concerning as he obviously doesn't have insurance and the vehicle doesn't even have an MOT. I don't know if I should report this to the police, but obviously no one else in the town has bothered. What would you do?

And your point is?

Yes I would report him - what if he kills somebody with his illegal van.

I would report people being violent or where I think there is the possibility of children being neglected or abused.

I would report a dangerous driver, or someone doing something that I thought would cause harm.

I would report things like needles discarded on the street.

But I would not report a homeless guy with no MOT as I would have no indication that he was a risk to other people by dangerous driving or anything Iike that.

No MOT for 4 years is dangerous driving there could be anything wrong with that van

With all dude respect I’m not going to rummage through this thread to read your posts. If you want to be sensible and respond to my post then feel free.

Oh and troll hunting breaks MN rules. You must be new round here.

Agree

Let the poor bloke be, ppl can be such interfering arseholes

He’s ok until he kills someone’s driving an unroadworthy vehicle without tax/mot or insurance. I would report as it’s illegal, otherwise what’s wrong with everyone else doing the exact same thing, the rules are there for a reason ffs!

Well, yeah, there could be an accident. There could be an accident with any vehicle at any given time. Cars/vans are dangerous.
It's more likely that the van would simply break down/not start at some point due to no maintenance.
It's a certainty, however, that a homeless guy would lose his only shelter if he was reported.

I suppose you just have to choose your angle on it.

The Vipers are out this evening - not just on this post but many others.

I guess there's a lot of people on here tonight because they're bored, pissed off they've got nothing better to do and maybe had a few wines as well......

Agreed

Do you think tax and MOT are optional? I’d be interested to see what ‘angle’ you’d take if someone you loved was injured by an uninsured driver behind the wheel of a non-roadworthy vehicle.

Omg please don't be so nasty
This can not be real. If it is then you really do need to change

@AcornGreen
My example (to save you scrolling back, totally fair point) was my own experience of witnessing a driver lose his brakes and go full force over a baby in a pram as well as hitting the mother and grandmother who had been innocently walking on the pavement. The baby was killed and the mum and gran badly injured. The driver was unscathed of course.
His car hadn't been MOT'd in years and he didn't think it would be a problem but the brakes went due to lack of upkeep. It was all over the local news here at the time.
But that is the reality of not MOTing and maintaining a vehicle.
So no, not new here. Just stunned anyone could think driving around without an MOT, and especially for 4 years, is reasonable.
He could after all park it somewhere that isn't a public road and have it SORN'd which is free and doesn't put anyone in harm's way.

Exactly. Someone who’s actually thought about this rather than going for the knee-jerk virtue-signalling.

People are saying leave him alone as you would be making a man homeless!

Everyone saying mind your own, would you be this considerate and empathetic if it was you crashed into with no insurance for you to claim from??? Probably not. I'd report it, we're all hard up at times but that doesn't mean it's acceptable to break the law amd put others at risk.

Hes not going to lose his home, just the ability to drive it uninsured. He's obviously got income if he's paying for fuel so there's really no excuse

My point was as I said – "are you able to address the MOT test element of the OP"? Everybody on the "YABU" side is only talking about the insurance element.

None of you are saying anything about the fact that a yearly MOT test is mandatory if you want to even put your car on the road, never mind actually drive it on the road. I'm wondering why people are so keen to defend somebody who is putting other people at risk of being injured or killed because of his actions. To drive the car when the basic yearly checks haven't been carried out for several years is taking the piss.

Would you be effectively shrugging your shoulders if you and your family were impacted by this man's decision?

IIRC life expectancy on the streets is 3 years. I'd not be looking to do that to anyone.

If he was just living in the van and it was stationary (or at the very most moved to a different part of the car park) then I would say ignore it and let him live his life.

However, the second that the car has been driven on the road it is no longer an innocent man just living his life, he is now breaking the law and knowingly and willingly putting other people at risk from his actions and I would report him on a heart beat.

My cousin was killed aged 7, along with her aunt, by an uninsured driver whose car had not been MOTed for 3 years. Her mother ended up in a wheelchair, her 4yo sister had multiple broken bones and their 8month old brother only survived with minor bruises and scratches because the aunt, who was pushing the pram with the 4yo, saw the car coming towards them and pushed the pram away and used her body to shield the 4yo from the majority of the impact, saving her life.

During the investigation it was found that the brakes failed due to being so worn they were barely there and the wheels were so worn down that there was zero grip on them. This meant that when the brakes failed, the driver lost control of the vehicle as he tried to break while turning a corner but because the tyres were so worn they had no grip on the road and his car span out of control and hit the family. A huge tragedy and loss of two lives that could have been prevented if he had just taken the car to be MOTed at any point in the previous three years.

I will turn a blind eye to a lot of things but dangerous driving (which is what the man is doing if he is neither insured, taxed or MOTed) is not one of them.

Mind your own business

I'm with OP on this. Just being on the road without 'road tax' is nobody's business (it should be abolished for everyone). Likewise for MOT. But actually driving without insurance puts other people at risk. I wouldn't report crimes that are solely against the govt (tax fraud), but I would readily report a drunk driver.

Yeah, he'd be FAR better off on a park bench 🙄🙄