Taxi driver claiming to be out of the country at time of crash

[Butterflyrainbow12]

Wonder if anyone has advice. I was crashed into by a taxi about 6 weeks ago, police wouldn’t come as nobody was injured. Got a crime number, took photos of his car, registration, taxi licence plate. We have just had our car returned and all was going well. Today we received a call from our insurance to tell us that the taxi driver is claiming he wasn’t in the country at the time and it wasn’t him. Now it obviously was his car or how else would they have traced him, or the details provided of name/phone number given must have been his. The insurance are now saying we will not get out excess returned.
Plan is to call the police tomorrow to discuss with them. We have not long had someone else ram the side of our car in a hit and run and had to lay the excess on this. I feel really down about this because it was a brand new car and we have had it with us less time than it’s been in the garage for repairs. The police were unable to locate any info on the hit and run driver though didn’t investigate till days later. Feeling really let down by all this. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Yes, the EU do but the authorities will be able to tell if he's scanned in and out of the county as that will be stored electronically. It wouldn't have been if he'd gone by car pre-brexit.

The insurance company need to fully investigate. If the legal owner is saying he wasn't in the country he needs to prove it. The owner can prove they were out of the country by applying for their passport records which show all movement in and out of the country. Generally the registered keeper of the vehicle would be deemed to be the driver if there is no evidence proving otherwise so unless the taxi had been reported as stolen the onus would be on the owner to prove they weren't driving, not the other way round.

That’s good.

some taxi drivers loan their cars out to unlicensed drivers.

Either he is lying- in which case he won’t be able to show he was out of the country OR

he was out of the country and someone else was driving his car (which is going to be way worse for him)

Some taxi drivers 'share' a vehicle and the license, it's not legal but not always easy for the authorities to spot. He could have been abroad and his brother, friend or whoever was using the taxi while he was away.

I thought the owner had to say who was driving if they claim that they weren't when something happened.

God, insurance companies are so fucking lazy and shit, hearing about this stuff time and time again on Mumsnet and the customer having to do the work, What the fuck do we pay them for?

Once this is sorted I'd complain to them, the ombudsman, and my MP, the lazy, useless fuckers.

Irrespective of your own case outcome, you could report the matter to local council as the taxi driver appears to be saying he allowed AN Other to drive using his licence. Council's are usually keen to follow up such matters since they grant the licences.