Monday 12 January 2009

Drivers' false address costs millions

This is today's splash story in the Metro - and I must say that I think it's fantastic.
If you don't want to be monitored this is a straight-forward way of dealing with speeding and congestion charge tickets. As I have said in previous posts it is fairly straight forward to register your vehicle in France.
And perfectly legal.
In the story I confess to being registered at an address in Scotland. Though I live in London.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Drivers_false_address_con_costs_millions&in_article_id=471842&in_page_id=34

Thousands of motorists are dodging fines by registering their cars at shadow addresses, costing the country millions of pounds in lost revenue.
The drivers flout the law with impunity by telling the licensing authorities their vehicle is at another location and then ignoring all requests and court orders to pay fines.
With no onus on the true resident at the 'care of' address to say where the registered owner lives, police and local authorities can rarely be bothered to chase them.
Metropolitan Police Authority member Jenny Jones said the deception was costing millions of pounds in lost revenue for London alone.
She added: 'They are getting away with murder. They can cause crashes and cause real problems and we cannot catch them.'
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency allows motorists to register their vehicles with 'care of' addres­ses, which might include a 'friend, doctor, hotel or hostel'.
The scheme was introduced to help people such as travellers who might not be able to provide a permanent address.
But some have cottoned on to the loophole as a way to avoid parking fines, congestion fees and even fines for speeding and other motoring offences.
Some Britons also use the ruse of registering their cars at their second home abroad. Up to 700,000 penalties issued every year to foreign- registered vehicles go uncollected.
Notorious anti-speed camera campaigner Captain Gatso claimed he offered an address in Chelmsford where 'hundreds of motorists have registered their cars'.
He said: 'I have been doing this for many years as have thousands of motorists in the UK. I have three vehicles registered with a friend in Scotland and I live in London.
'I never pay the congestion charge or fines. Everything goes in the bin except the tax disc. Police can't be bothered to track down people who don't register at their home.'

The DVLA said it had to accept details it was given at face value.
But it added: 'It is an offence to knowingly give false or misleading dec­larations and information.'
Ms Jones added: 'It is down to police to follow this through. Far too many forces seem to give up.'

3 comments:

  1. Could you give me the chelmsford address. Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  2. Go to captaingatso.net and send me a message with your email address in it.

    CG

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anybody north of Chelmsford interested in a Manchester address to use?

    ReplyDelete