What's the actual offence - re car tax?

[freddiefrog]

My car tax was due on the 1st October. Paid for it online on the 24th September

2nd October I had an early appointment in a nearby town so drove kids to school then went straight to my appointment.

As I came back to my car a traffic warden was hanging around and as I unlocked the door, he approached me to tell me that my car tax had expired and he'd taken my car registration details and was going to report me.

I explained that I had paid for it online the previous week and I was just waiting for it to arrive.

He insisted that I was committing an offence for driving my vehicle without displaying the valid tax disc and that he'd "heard that story before"

I thought you had a couple of weeks grace if you do it online, and I've since had a look online which seemed to suggest that you do, but he insisted that you dont, the rules have recently changed

I hadn't really twigged that my car tax was due to be honest, the disc hadn't arrived in the post, I knew I'd paid it, but it had just gone to the back of my mind and I hadn't really thought about it after that.

By the time I got home, the post had arrived and the tax disc was sitting on my doormat so I put it in the car straight away.

It's been 3 weeks now and I've not heard anything more, but am I likely to? I could really do without a massive fine

Thanks!

"You have 14 days before you need to display the new disc if you applied before your old disc expired." from this website. So you're in the clear.

This happened to me roughly the same time (about the 5th of September). Came back to car to find fixed penalty notice without any details of what the penalty actually was, just a notice about road tax and the relevant legislation. I actually had the bloody tax disc at home as it had arrived the previous day. Nothing has come of it since then so I assume we're in the clear.

We decided we thought the police had access to DVLA records so would most likely have been a traffic warden ticketing us. Must be a traffic warden's heaven, ticketing someone with no road tax (I 'm guessing there's a certain amount of payment by results in traffic wardening)

Thanks!

I found that website when I searched when I got home, but he was so utterly insistant the rules had recently changed that I wondered if I'd missed something.

DH thinks he was hanging around as my carpark ticket only had about 3 minutes left on it and he was annoyed I'd made it back to the car on time and he couldn't give me a parking fine so he had a go at me for something else

Thanks!

I always print off the acknowledgement when I pay online and put it on my dashboard if I need to leave my car anywhere while I'm waiting. The traffic warden may have reported you, but whoever actually issues the fines will have checked and seen that you had paid in time.

Rustybear - I'll definately do that next time.

I had assumed that the police/whoever check the DVLA records - I've been watching too many of those Police Camera Action type shows where the lack of insurance/mot/tax shows up on their scanners.

He just was quite rude and aggressive and utterly insistant that I was about to get a huge fine